


we were shotgun lovers (i'm a shotgun running away)

by angxlsgrxce



Series: we were shotgun lovers (i'm a shotgun running away) [1]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: (but only in the flashbacks), (the fluff is in the flashbacks), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angry Peter Parker, Angst with a Happy Ending, Ben Parker Lives, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fluff, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, M/M, Parent Tony Stark, Peter Parker Has a Family, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Pining Tony Stark, Protective Ben Parker, Protective May Parker (Spider-Man), Protective Peter Parker, Protective Tony Stark, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Has Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, eventually. chapter 8 is when these tags come into play., in vague terms, potential may parker/pepper potts as well!! bc love me some wlw, potential peter parker/ned leeds, this fic is honestly just self-projection but isn't that what all fic is?, tony stark has [insert literally all the tags ao3 has bc boy does this man have issues]
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:13:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 41,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25584187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angxlsgrxce/pseuds/angxlsgrxce
Summary: Tony looks down, eyes focusing on the carpeted hallway, head pulsing. It’s a musty shade of white, almost cream, more beige than anything. It’s old from years of foot traffic, texture crusty as he scrapes his foot slightly along it. Dust is settled in the crevices and there are tears at points where it meets the walls. At the doorway of the Parkers’ apartment, the fabric cuts off as worn wood takes its place. There’s a knot right next to May’s socked foot—light blue with small daisies embroidered on the ankles—and it warps the wood.May clears her throat. “Why are you here?”or, tony stark and ben parker were in love once upon a time. but once upon a time was then. and this is now.
Relationships: Ben Parker & May Parker (Spider-Man), Ben Parker/Tony Stark, Harley Keener & Tony Stark, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark, May Parker (Spider-Man) & Tony Stark, Pepper Potts & Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Tony Stark, it's just everyone and tony stark guys this whole fic is him healing
Series: we were shotgun lovers (i'm a shotgun running away) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1791127
Comments: 193
Kudos: 131





	1. painting flowers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi, dear reader! this fic has been in the works for months now and i’m finally, finally, at the point where i’m ready to post.  
> yes, this is a rare pair, but this also focuses very intently on peter and tony’s relationship and may and tony’s relationship and tony’s journey to heal from all that he’s done and all that’s been done to him so!! give me a chance?  
> (big thanks to peachy and nat and sarah and everyone else on the marvel mob server who had enough interest in this to give me the motivation to keep writing)  
> anyway, i hope y’all enjoy, this work is my heart and soul  
> fic playlist is [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2vm1hGpZNndNg54JO4jUrM?si=XIGANf-OSH2WHuYl8EBUww), i listen to it constantly when i write (and each chapter title gets its name from one of the songs)
> 
> tw for this chapter: flowery description of a panic attack (more metaphorical than anything else), brief mention of a plane crash, brief mention of gunshot

_June 18, 2016._

_Queens, New York City, New York._

Tony exhales slowly, taking in the apartment door. It’s old, white paint peeling at the edges, and the thin brass _3B_ just above his eye level is tarnished. The scuff marks around the lock show signs of a drunkard fumbling with his key—or in this case, more likely a child, learning how to unlock the door. He looks at the scuff marks, runs a calloused finger over one of them, trying to push past the feelings of yearning, the _this could’ve been yours._ He breathes in again, other hand finding the stress ball in his pocket, the one Rhodey pressed into his grip before he walked out.

_It’ll be okay_ , Rhodey’s voice murmurs. 

He raises his hand, curled in a loose fist, to knock. It trembles. He squeezes the stress ball harder. His eyes find the top of the doorframe, automatically calculating the height, and he clenches his jaw, looking back at his trembling hand. It’s been _years_. They both were supposed to move on. His nails dig into the rubber skin of the stress ball, and some part of him is grateful that it’s not his own skin. The other part of him is disappointed. 

“Deep breaths,” he mutters to himself.

Then he knocks. 

“One second,” a lilting female voice calls from within, and then there’s the sound of a bolt sliding, a lock turning. The door swings open. 

May Parker—at least, someone who should be May Parker, according to his background checks—stares at him. She sucks in a breath, eyes flashing with barely concealed _something_. Tony doesn’t know what the emotion is. He knows it’s not a happy one. 

He reminds himself that this was the reception he expected, plastering a press smile on. He holds his hand out to shake and thanks the God he never believed in when it doesn’t tremble. “May Parker, I presume. Tony Stark.”

“I know who you are.” Her voice holds none of the usual awe people have when they say those five words to him. Tony lets his hand drop. “Why are you here, Dr. Stark?”

“Your son—”

“My nephew, if you’re referring to Peter.” Tony falters. That wasn’t what he was expecting, wasn’t what he was prepared for, because if Peter’s the _nephew_ — “Richard and Mary passed away nine years ago.”

Tony swallows tightly. His heartbeat echoes in his ears, he ignores it. The floor sways below him, he ignores it. Peter would’ve been five, he thinks. That he can’t ignore. “Oh. How did it happen?” It’s a marvel his voice stays steady. 

May just looks at him. “A plane crash.” 

“I…I didn’t know.”

“I can see that.”

Tony looks down, eyes focusing on the carpeted hallway, head pulsing. It’s a musty shade of white, almost cream, more beige than anything. It’s old from years of foot traffic, texture crusty as he scrapes his foot slightly along it. Dust is settled in the crevices and there are tears at points where it meets the walls. At the doorway of the Parkers’ apartment, the fabric cuts off as worn wood takes its place. There’s a knot right next to May’s socked foot—light blue with small daisies embroidered on the ankles—and it warps the wood. 

May clears her throat. “Why are you here?” 

“Your nephew has qualified for the September Foundation Grant,” Tony starts, slipping into autopilot, press smile finding its way back on and eyes going back to meet hers. “It’s a program that will allow him to collaborate on research projects with Stark Industries scientists and researchers, as well as other gifted students of his age.”

“Peter never applied to that. He would’ve told me.”

Tony clenches his jaw. “Regardless, he qualified for the grant.” “You’re lying.” May’s eyes are dark, scrutinizing him. Tony feels her gaze fall on the old blazer he’s wearing, the worn band t-shirt, and then the jeans that have two holes above his left knee; burns from the workshop. He focuses on breathing, keeping his expression as honest as possible. She narrows her eyes, crossing her arms. “Are you here to see him?”

Tony feels the wind knocked out of him, but he tries to furrow his brow, tries to act confused. “Your nephew? Yes, I’m here to see him.” She doesn’t take his bullshit. “My husband.” 

“Is he—” Tony’s voice comes out choked—too raw, too desperate. “Is he here?”

May doesn’t meet his eyes. “You should come in, Dr. Stark.” She opens the door wider, stepping back as Tony hesitantly makes his way inside, both hands shaking violently inside his pockets. She closes it and turns the lock, doesn’t slide the deadbolt, then steps away from the door and nods towards a well-worn couch in the center of the room that has stuffing coming out of the left arm. Tony feels a surge of longing. He can’t tell what it’s for. May nods at the couch again. “Take a seat.” 

Tony sits. 

May moves around the half-island to the kitchen, and Tony hears the rattle of a kettle as it’s filled with water then placed on a stovetop, the popping noises as she turns the stove on, then the slow exhale of breath she lets out. Tony can picture her slumping against the counter—or it could be the fridge—but he doesn’t turn to look. He’s staring at his hands, trying to avoid looking at the walls, or at the shelf that the TV’s placed on, or at the coffee table that has paint stains in all-too-familiar colors that swim in his mind constantly, or at the bookshelf with its small picture frames and tiny mementos, all littered with memories that he never got to have. Memories that— _no. They couldn’t have been his._

The tea kettle starts whistling and a cabinet squeaks as it opens; Tony could fix that in an instant with a Phillips head screwdriver, why hasn’t Ben? May calls out, “How do you take your tea, Dr. Stark?”

His mouth feels full of cotton. “Whatever’s easiest.” She scoffs but doesn’t respond, and what feels like seconds later, there’s a steaming mug of dark tea being held in front of him. 

Tony’s hands are shaking too hard to accept it. He wouldn’t be able to accept it even if they weren’t.

There’s a beat, then May clears her throat. “Right. You don’t like being handed things.” She sets it down on the scuffed coffee table, and Tony feels like his heart is beating too fast. Too hard, too fast, too loud. The sounds of New York’s streets echo in from an open window by the TV and it’s so much. So much input. He blinks, trying to block it out, nails digging into his palms. She knows he doesn’t like things being handed to him, which means Ben told her, which means Ben _remembered_. Tony can’t process that. Ben _remembered._ How much does Tony remember?

Liked his coffee black, with one sugar, but only if it’s before six in the morning. Couldn’t cook to save his life but made the best chocolate chip cookies. Liked sunrises better than sunsets because they were beginnings instead of endings. Painted with warm tones because they meant happiness and he didn’t want to be sad. Danced in the rain and cried when the sun was out. Listened to classical music while he painted but rock while he drove. Liked rocky road ice cream with sriracha sauce. Could kill a man but never even hurt a fly. Was terrified of the dark but slept like a baby with all the lights on. Broke every phone he ever owned in some way. Hated using technology and hand wrote everything, even his papers. Loved old movies, especially black and whites. Thought chocolate was the best thing since sliced bread. Loathed Jell-O. Brought freshly-baked bread to the park to give the ducks, but ended up eating it himself. Only liked multi-colored cats and big dogs. Hated driving but never yelled in the car. Fell asleep every time during an episode of a TV show but stayed awake for three-hour-long movies. Lost his glasses every time he took them off. Hogged the bed unless he was the big spoon. Only ate popcorn if the TV was on. Snorted when he laughed but giggled when he was—

“I get it,” May says sharply. “You loved my husband.” Tony goes still. 

“I’m sorry—I didn’t realize I was—” He cuts himself off before May can. Her glare is fierce as she stares at him.

“You want to know where he is.”

“I…yes. I do. But—if he’s still a firefighter, then he’d be on duty right now, and I didn’t come here for him—” 

May’s eyes harden. “I don’t know what you want with my nephew, but I don’t buy that excuse. Any of it. Ben isn’t here, Dr. Stark. Ben won’t be here today, or tomorrow, or next week. He was shot by a mugger almost four months ago. He’s been in a coma ever since, at Metro-General Hospital. We don’t…we don’t know if he’s waking up.”

Tony feels himself stop breathing. 

He opens his mouth to say something. The words don’t come. The walls are closing in on him, the floor is dropping out from underneath his feet, the world is swimming before his eyes, static is filling his ears, all he can think is _Ben._

“He had—” May clears her throat. “He has a pre-existing heart condition. A few years ago, he got hurt doing evacuation—a structural beam fell on top of him and it caused a rupture in his heart. An aortic dissection. He went into surgery, got the tear repaired and had a valve replaced. But when he got shot…his heart ruptured again from the trauma. He had internal bleeding, another tear, I’m sure you understand, with your own heart problems. He was in surgery for twelve hours. The blood loss caused a coma, and he hasn’t been healing properly, not enough to wake up. But…his brain activity is normal, there’s still hope.” She goes quiet, nails tapping on the ceramic mug in her hands as she whispers, “There’s still hope.” 

Tony wants to believe her. 

But his world is gone. 

He looks at the coffee table again, sees the swirling designs of a tulip on the leg closest to him. And he takes a shuddering breath in. 

_April 7, 1988._

_Boston, Massachusetts._

Tony’s sprawled on the couch, left leg dangling onto the ground and one arm stretched over his head when he hears the scrape of a key in the lock. He doesn’t look up from the thesis he’s reading, but a smile finds its way onto his face. He closes his eyes and lets his arm drop over his face, listening as the door opens. 

“Hey, handsome. How were classes today?” 

Ben sighs and there’s a rattle as he drops his keys in the bowl. “Boring. Long.” 

He’s taking his shoes off now, Tony knows, and then he’ll throw his sweatshirt on the couch. The sound of paper crinkling blends with the rustle of cloth as Ben takes his sweatshirt off, and Tony feels it land on his legs. “Sorry. Did you at least get your paper in on time?” he asks, tugging the hoodie towards himself and burying his face in it, rolling onto his stomach as he breathes in the acrylic paint and citrus scent of his boyfriend.

Ben laughs. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” Tony mumbles into the fabric, and then there’s a calloused hand carding through his hair, gentle fingers scratching at his scalp. “Mm, that’s nice,” he hums. Ben smooths back his curls and kisses the top of his head. “You didn’t answer my question though.”

“Yes, I got it in on time,” Ben huffs, and Tony tilts his head up, eyes still closed. 

“I‘m proud of you, you get a kiss,” he says, and Ben kisses him gently, hand cupping the back of his head. Paper crinkles again. Tony pulls back, nose scrunching. “What was that?”

“Maybe if you opened your eyes, you’d know. Dumbass,” Ben teases. Tony scoffs, but there’s a grin fighting its way onto his face. He rolls back over, looking up at Ben.

“Hi, tesoro,” he murmurs, watching Ben’s upside-down face flush. Tony grins, because making his boyfriend blush never gets old. “You’re pretty.” 

Ben hums, “Says you, angel,” and it’s Tony’s turn to go red. His gaze drops to Ben’s hand, where paint-stained fingers hold a bouquet of tulips wrapped in damp newspaper. He grins wildly.

“You got me flowers!” 

Ben holds the bouquet out, the petals brushing Tony’s cheeks as he leans in to smell them. “I got you flowers,” Ben says softly. 

When Tony looks up, Ben’s giving him _that_ look. The look that gives Tony butterflies, the look that makes him feel like he’s loved, like he’s home, like he’s _safe_. The look that no one else gives him. That Ben doesn’t give to anyone else. He swallows back a sob and sits up on his knees, wrapping his arms around Ben’s neck and pressing their mouths together. “Ti amo,” he murmurs against Ben’s lips, and he feels the dampness of the newspaper soaking into the back of his t-shirt as Ben wraps his arms tightly around him. Tony pulls back to press his face into the crook of Ben’s neck, and Ben cups the back of his neck, kissing the side of his head. 

“I’ve got you,” Ben says, and Tony kisses his neck, humming. 

“I know.” 

They stay like that, intertwined and breathing in the same air, as Tony’s shirt gets wetter with water from the flower stems and as Ben’s skin gets wetter with Tony’s tears. 

_You’re the only person that makes me feel like this_ , Tony thinks, and then whispers against Ben’s neck. 

“Like what?” Ben murmurs against his scalp, squeezing his neck gently. Tony goes boneless against him, eyes fluttering shut.

“Safe,” he says after a moment. Ben goes still for a second, then he sets the flowers down on the couch next to Tony’s legs, arms tightening around him. He slips a hand under Tony’s shirt and rests it on the small of his back. Tony presses closer as Ben’s rough thumb rubs gently over the patch of scarred skin. 

He told Ben about the burn their first night together; he said it was from when he was seven and made the mistake of bumping into a soldering iron. It wasn’t a complete lie—but Ben had known it wasn’t the truth. The next morning, when he woke up curled into Ben’s bare chest, when he traced over the flowering bruises shaped like Ben’s fingers on his hips, when he could feel the memory of Ben’s gentle touch on the back of his neck, when Ben kissed his hair gently, he told him the truth. 

_My dad isn’t a good man, Benny._

Ben’s jaw had tightened then and Tony feels it tighten now. He turns his head to nuzzle his nose against Ben’s pulsepoint. “I’m safe.” 

It’s a reassurance for Ben, this time. The tension seeps out of his body. “I know you are. How could you not be, when I’m around?” 

“Exactly,” Tony says, shifting back as Ben’s arms loosen. Ben cups his face, wipes the tears off his cheeks, kisses his nose. “I’m so lucky to have such a strong, muscular boyfriend.” 

“You only like me for my body, don’t you?” 

“Hmm…” He chews his lower lip, trailing his hands up Ben’s chest, grinning when he feels him flex, stopping when he gets to Ben’s shoulders. He winks. “Your body is definitely a plus, handsome.” 

Ben’s eyes crinkle as he laughs and Tony traces the crow’s feet with the pads of his fingers, smiling when Ben’s lips brush his palm. “I knew it,” Ben says, “You’ve always only wanted me for my body.” Tony hums absently, studying the flecks of green in Ben’s eyes, the dark circles like someone pressed their thumbs into his skin underneath them. 

“I can’t believe you got me flowers.” 

Ben kisses his palm again. “Yes, you can.” 

“Yeah, I can.” Because Ben’s just _like_ that. He cares. Cares like no one’s ever cared about Tony before, not even Rhodey. Cares even when it’s not a birthday, or an anniversary. Cares about making him happy. Ben smiles like he knows what Tony’s thinking. 

“I love you,” he says. Tony doesn’t think he’ll ever stop feeling warm inside when Ben says that to him. “Love you too, handsome.” He scoots back and hears a snap as his knee presses down on the flowers, breaking two of the stalks. “Oops.” Ben snorts, reaches around him to grab them, and goes down on one knee, presenting them to him with soft eyes.

“For my Tony.” 

“For your Tony,” Tony whispers, taking the flowers. The tulips blur together in his vision, reds and yellows and pinks, droplets of water on each petal. Ben’s thumb brushes his cheek again. “Sorry—” 

“Don’t apologize for crying, angel.” And he leaves it at that; it’s all Tony needs to hear. “I’m gonna call and order a pizza, back in a sec…Hi. Can I get a large veggie pizza, please? Yeah, salad would be great too. 30 minutes? Yeah, that works, thanks.” There’s a click as he sets the phone back in its cradle, and then his arms are around Tony again, taking the flowers gently out of his hands. Tony settles into his side. 

“Did you—”

“Yes, I ordered from Regina’s,” Ben sighs. “It’s like you don’t know me at all.” 

“I love you,” Tony says softly. “I know.” 

“Don’t you dare Star Wars me, asshole.” 

Ben laughs. “I love you too.” He pulls Tony closer, dropping a kiss to the top of his head as he turns the TV on, flipping through the channels idly.

Tony closes his eyes as the gentle noises of a nature program make their way to his ears. The bright colors of the tulips are at the front of his mind. 

_June 18, 2016._

_Queens, New York City, New York._

The paint is chipped and the wood underneath shows through; Ben must’ve painted it years ago. Tony blinks away tears and focuses harder on the colors. The petals are yellow, shadowed with oranges and pinks, darkening towards the center; greens and blues form the stem. There’s a slash of red over the bud of the tulip, darker paint than the rest. Ben used a heavy brushstroke there. Tony wants to think it wasn’t purposeful. Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was. 

“Peter wanted to help,” May says quietly. Tony flinches before he can stop himself at the sound of her voice. “He was…nine, I think. Ben’s never had it in him to refuse; he gave Peter a paintbrush and let him go wild. Peter got bored after two seconds—painting’s too detail-oriented for him. He likes photography better, always has.”

_Why are you telling me this?_ Tony wants to ask. 

“Oh,” he says instead. “So he—he’s not just into science then, huh?” 

May shifts in her chair, bringing her feet up and tucking them underneath herself. She stays quiet for almost too long. Tony shifts uncomfortably. He squeezes the rubber ball in his pocket harder, then remembers the tea and reaches forward with trembling hands to take it. “With Ben raising him, I don’t think he couldn’t be into some form of art.”

Tony’s heart seizes. Of course she’s right. Ben’s love for art doesn’t just leave a person alone. He still goes to every art museum when he gets the chance, when he can get away from the team asking questions about why he’s spending his days just wandering through the galleries, when he can look at painting on a canvas, when he can remember. _I didn’t know Tony Stark was an art person._ Being around Steve Rogers and seeing the same charcoal stains he once saw on another man’s fingers never stops hurting. 

“How did you meet him?” Tony asks, because he’s always been a masochist. He doesn’t want to hear why. But he’d rather know than imagine. 

“You don’t actually want to hear why, do you, Dr. Stark?” comes her response. Tony tenses. She’s not supposed to be able to see through him so plainly, with her dark eyes that hold no warmth when she looks at him. 

“I—”

“Don’t keep lying to me.” 

Tony stares down at his mug, taps the handle of it, says, “Please tell me.” 

“It was a month after you left him, almost exactly,” she says. Tony doesn’t want to hear more, not if that’s how their story starts. He opens his mouth to ask her to stop. Her voice grows harder. “He was running errands, if you could call it that. I bumped into him, and he apologized four times, then started crying. I didn’t know what to do—I’ve never known what to do when he cries.” _Let him cry_ , Tony thinks, _and hold him until he smiles._ “But I asked if he wanted a hug. We got asked to leave fifteen minutes later by an employee for blocking the aisle. I brought him back to my apartment, sat with him until he cried himself to sleep. It seemed like it wasn’t new for him.” Tony feels shards of ice grow in his heart. _He_ did that to Ben. He did that to _Ben._ “When he woke up, he told me everything that happened. He needed someone to talk to. It took all day; he moved in with me the next day, I needed a roommate.” 

Tony doesn’t know what to say, but his mouth moves before he can stop it. “How…how did you get together?” 

“We didn’t.” 

“What?”

Tony knows the expression on his face is too hopeful, too desperate, but he can’t find it in himself to care. May scoffs. “You truly think Ben could move on from you? He loved you, Dr. Stark. He doesn’t stop loving that easily. He and I are best friends. Nothing more. But nothing _less._ ” 

Tony’s world spins on its axis. Again. He chokes out, “But—” 

“We’re married. Yes.” May looks down at her mug like it has the answer, one hand curled around the handle. She traces the rim with a gentle finger, then says in a low voice, “It was for convenience. Sure, three mouths are harder to feed than two, but two salaries spread across three people is much better math. Peter needed two guardians in the house; it gave him more support. Taxes were easier, bills were easier…life was easier if we were married. Peter needed an aunt and an uncle, so that someone could be with him constantly. After Richard and Mary passed…it was too hard on him to be alone. He needed reassurance I wasn’t leaving, that Ben wasn’t leaving. Plus, a newlywed couple raising their orphaned nephew is a much better sob story for people to deal with than a single guy like Ben having guardianship of Peter. People talk and…marriage was the best option. For everyone. We got married ten days after their plane went down.” 

Tony hesitates. “Why didn’t you call me?” 

“You’re joking, right?” May scoffs again. “Oh, we tried. Not to ask for help, Ben wouldn’t have done that, but because we thought you might want to know that your best friend and his wife were dead. Of course, we couldn’t even find a number that worked, and when we thought we had, we got brushed off by a P.A. who implied you were too busy to talk because you were at a party. We stopped trying after that. Ben stopped talking about you. Peter doesn’t even know that he knew you, you know that? Oh, Peter _idolizes_ you, and Ben just...well, he just let him. Because Ben’s always been too good.” 

_Too good for you_ , her eyes say. 

“Oh.” 

She doesn’t let up. “When the news came out that you were missing in Afghanistan, that you might be dead…well, let’s just say it’s hard to explain to a nine-year-old boy why his uncle doesn’t talk anymore. Why his uncle won’t eat or sleep, why his uncle won’t stop _painting_. Thank God you came back, right? Because if you hadn’t, Ben wouldn’t have either. Sure, he would’ve tried for Peter. He only did things for Peter during those three months. Three months, five days. And then—when was it, December 2012? When the world actually thought you were dead? Peter was older, of course, so Ben didn’t let himself react. He had to be strong for his nephew. But he didn’t breathe until he saw that you were alive six days later.” Tony can’t breathe either, picturing Ben’s tear-stained face, Ben’s shaking shoulders, Ben’s broken eyes. “And I’m forgetting New York. He burst into tears when you fell from the sky; Peter was crying with him. Iron Man was dead to him; but to Ben, his _angel_ was dead. His Tony.” 

“Mrs. Parker,” Tony whispers. He can’t breathe. “Please—” He can’t breathe. “Please stop.” 

“You didn’t stop hurting him,” she says furiously. Tony flinches hard and suddenly his legs are burning as the shards of ice in his heart grow. He can’t breathe. There’s hot liquid seeping through his jeans, _the tea_ , his mind supplies, but he can’t breathe. 

The ice shatters. He’s cold everywhere. 

“I know. I know I didn’t—I know—” he whispers. “I—Mrs. Parker—” 

“I’ll get you a towel.” 

He hears her get up, hears the noise of her mug being set down on the coffee table, Ben’s coffee table, and he forces himself to breathe. He forces an inhale, an exhale, and he stares at the sunset on the surface of the warped wood, a shade darker than the wood of the floors, covered by a braided red rug under the table. 

Tony hates how weak he is. 

Scratchy fabric is pressed into his hands, the mug is taken away, he mechanically wipes up the tea, and he breathes. He folds the towel up, creasing it along the stripe of blue that cuts through the off-white, and he breathes. He sets it on the sunset, covering the sun, absently realizes that maybe it’s a sunrise. And he breathes. May waits. 

Tony doesn’t know how much time passes before he speaks again. “When—” He clears his throat. “When will your nephew be home?” 

“I’m not letting you speak to him until you tell me why you want to.” Her voice is as cold as the ice traveling through his veins. He knows if he looks at her, her eyes will be as sharp as the icicles at home in his heart.

“I explained to you already, Mrs. Parker—” 

“And Iexplained already, Dr. Stark, that I don’t believe you. What do you want with my nephew?” 

Tony pauses, scanning May’s face for any hint that she knows what he does. She meets his eyes, mouth pressed in a line, arms crossed over her chest. There are wrinkles around her eyes and mouth, wrinkles that grow less prominent as she frowns. There are years in her eyes, years that caused the wisdom he sees. But there’s no fear, no worry, no stress. And May Parker is the kind of person who would be constantly worried for her nephew’s safety, if she knew. 

He reaches for his phone, sets it on the coffee table next to the tea-stained towel, taps the screen twice. An image, screen-captured from an online video of Spider-Man catching a car, appears. Tony watches May as she looks at it. 

“That’s that vigilante, the local one,” she says. Tony nods. Her eyes widen. “The local one…you can’t possibly be suggesting—” 

“I’m not suggesting it,” he says, as gently as possible, leaning forward and swiping the photo away. A grainy video, CCTV footage, begins to play. 

May jerks to her feet, pacing across the carpet, pressing her palms to her eyes and dragging them down her face. She exhales shakily. “That’s a video of my nephew. My nephew, changing in an alley—I’m going to _murder_ him. That’s why he’s been so tired…and God, we don’t have rats, it’s him sneaking out at night—and that…that’s why he asked for my sewing kit, so he could make that parody of Captain America’s suit? Those are practically pajamas—” Her hand goes to her mouth as she breathes, “He’s fighting criminals in pajamas. I—” She cuts herself off and whirls to Tony. “What the hell do you want with him, Stark?”

“I’ve erased that footage from every server in the city. I was the first, and _only_ , person to see it. I made sure of that. My A.I. has been monitoring security cameras since Spider-Man first made an appearance, making sure his identity stayed secret. I didn’t ask her for the information until today. I didn’t know who he was until today, Mrs. Parker. I’m not here because he’s Ben’s—” Tony stops himself. “I’m not here because of that.”

“Then why are you here? I bet I can guess,” May says scathingly, “I watch the news, Dr. Stark. You need a team—my nephew will _not_ be a member. He’s fourteen. He’s a fucking kid, he’s not some pawn you can use when you need a superhero handy!” 

Tony reaches his hand back in his pocket, squeezing the stress ball hard enough to split the seam of the rubber casing. “He would be back-up, I won’t let him—” 

“You’re right, you won’t let him. He won’t be going with you. He is a _child_. He is not a soldier.” May’s voice is raw, painful, gutted. Tony scrambles for something to say. 

“I made him a suit. I—I made him a suit. It’s got protective features enabled, and a tracking protocol, and a parachute, and a heating system in case his biology is the same as a spider’s and he can’t thermoregulate like humans, because I have _no idea_ how he does the things he can do and who knows, maybe he is a spider, and an A.I. like mine to help keep him safe, and—” 

“Why?” she asks, staring down at him. “Why do you care about what happens to him?” 

“Because you’re right. Because he’s just a kid,” Tony whispers, “And he’s not a soldier. And if he’s anything like Ben—he can’t be stopped from doing this. But he can be protected.” 

May falters at that. “And you think what you made for him can protect him?” 

“Yes,” he says firmly, “Yes. You don’t need to have faith in me; just in my tech. You can trust my tech.” 

She looks at him, and Tony sees fear in her eyes. The fear that wasn’t present before she knew. She drops into her chair again, resting her elbows on her thighs, pressing her face to her hands. “Okay. Okay,” she repeats, like she’s reassuring herself. She rubs her face and straightens her back, hands dropping to her lap, eyes meeting his. “But I want you gone before he gets back.” 

Tony forces himself not to flinch. He wanted to meet Peter. Wanted to see the boy Ben raised as his own; wanted to meet Richie’s son.

“Do we have a deal, Dr. Stark?” May says sharply. 

There’s a sound of a key in the lock, then the door opens. May tenses, mutters, “Shit, kid. Such bad timing.” 

“Hey, May!” 

“Hey, hon,” May says, eyes tracking Peter as he walks in. Tony doesn’t turn, staring at Ben’s coffee table instead, and he hears the door click shut, Peter’s groan, the thud of a bag hitting the floor, the clack of something being set on the table. “How was school today?” 

“It was okay,” Peter responds from the kitchen, “I got that Spanish test I was telling you about back, my grammar was messed up in a couple places but I got a 90. Hey, there’s this crazy car parked outside, is someone new moving in?” 

Tony supposes that’s his cue, because the kid clearly hasn’t noticed him yet. He turns and feels his breath catch, feels his heart stop. 

Richard Parker is staring at him. _Richie_ is right there, eyes wide, fiddling with his earbuds, a math pun on his t-shirt, hair gelled flat on his head. 

May clears her throat and it shatters the illusion. That’s Peter. Richie’s son. And Richie’s dead. 

Tony forces a smile. “Oh, Mr. Parker,” he says casually, because Iron Man, Tony Stark, isn’t supposed to be phased by anything. 

“Um,” Peter says eloquently. His eyes dart to May, Tony sees her shake her head out of the corner of his eye, and Peter’s gaze jumps back to meet his. “What? What are you doing—” The kid crosses his arms, laughing in disbelief, then uncrosses them and holds his hand out to shake, before realizing Tony’s too far away and tucking both hands into his pockets. Tony wants to cry. Every gesture Peter makes is so much like his father, so much like his uncle, so much like the people who are no longer in either of their lives. “Hey, I—I—I’m Peter.” 

“Tony,” he gets out, before Peter’s off again, rambling, and Tony can only see his mouth moving, not hearing anything. That’s _Richie_ , but his eyes are brown like Mary’s, his hands are restless like Ben’s. That’s Richie. But it’s not. 

May says something Tony can’t hear. Peter stops talking, moves to sit in the chair across from May, curls up like she had earlier, tucks his feet under himself, looks between Tony and May. Then he tenses, already halfway out of the chair, body coiled like a spring. 

“What’s wrong? Is it—” 

“No, hon, this has nothing to do with Ben. Peter—” May exhales slowly, rubbing her face. “Why didn’t you tell me?” 

Peter’s eyes widen slightly. “Tell you what? I—there’s nothing to tell you, what are you talking about? Why is Tony Stark in our apartment? What?” 

“Peter,” she says firmly, “Stop lying to me.” 

Peter glances away quickly, his ring finger tapping the center of his palm, and Tony bites back a smile when he realizes that the tic is a form of the motion the kid makes while he’s out as Spider-Man. Then he sees the fear in Peter’s eyes and there’s no reason to be smiling at all. Peter’s _fourteen._

“Please, hon—” 

“I couldn’t,” Peter whispers, staring at the floor. His finger taps harder and Tony wonders absently if it matches the pace of his heartbeat. “I _couldn’t_.” May opens her mouth to say something, but Peter keeps going. “When you can do the things that I can, but you don’t, and then the bad things happen…they happen because of you.” 

May and Tony react simultaneously, Tony inhaling sharply and leaning back as he presses his hand to his chest, May jerking forward and saying desperately, “Peter, no—” 

“I’ve been me all my life, you know that, but I’ve only had these powers six months, and—and I didn’t know what to do with them, and I thought—I thought it meant things were going my way, some stupid part of me thought it meant I could be _selfish_ , so I did nothing, I could’ve done so much, and God, May—” Peter’s voice breaks along with Tony’s heart as Peter scrubs his face roughly. “If you had known, you would’ve known it was my fault—I didn’t do _anything_ for almost a month, and then—then he got shot—it was my fault, because _I_ lashed out, and _I_ ran away, and it was my fault, I’m sorry—I couldn’t tell you because if I told you then you would’ve known—and I can’t lose you too—May—I’m sorry—” He drops his head, shoulders heaving with silent sobs. Tony sees the tears hitting the carpet and clenches his hands into the fabric of his jeans, ensuring he stays put. It’s not his place to comfort Peter. 

May uncurls from her chair, eyes glossy with unshed tears. She’s in front of Peter in seconds, crouching down in front of him, tipping his head up, cupping his face with both hands, the pads of her fingers resting on his temples. “It was not your fault, Peter.” 

“But—”

“No, Petey-boy.” Peter lets out a broken sob, pressing into her hands and closing his eyes. “No buts. You are fourteen years old. Even if you have these—these powers, it was not your responsibility. Maybe now, you know what you could’ve done. But you didn’t know then. It is not your fault. I do not blame you, Peter Benjamin, and I’m so proud of you for what you’re doing now.” 

Peter’s eyes flash open, red-rimmed and overflowing with tears that spill down his flushed cheeks. Tony’s reminded too vividly of Richie and he closes his eyes, breathing in shakily, before opening them again as Peter says desperately, “You—what?” 

“I don’t blame you, baby,” May murmurs gently, thumbs brushing the tears away. “And what you’re doing–I’m proud. You’re helping people. Ben would be proud too if he knew. But I need you to do this—all of it—safely. You’re out in pajamas—” 

“Sweats,” Peter mumbles half-heartedly, but a smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. May tweaks his nose. 

“You sleep in sweats, that makes them pajamas. I just—I can’t lose you either, Peter. I know I can’t stop you, God knows I could never stop your uncle from doing anything that involved helping people, but I want you to be doing it safely.” 

“I’ve got super-healing, May.” Tony hums under his breath, making a mental note. Peter tenses suddenly, jaw tightening, face closing off even as tears still make their way down in his cheeks. Tony watches as the kid’s walls go up. And he’s not reminded of anyone but himself. “I’m sorry, Mr. Stark. Sir.” 

Tony sucks in a breath, nails digging into his palms. He doesn’t know what Peter needs right now, but he takes a shot in the dark. He’s used to doing that. “C’mon, none of that, Mr. Parker. Especially not the ‘sir’ part. You’ll make me feel old.” He sees May’s sharp gaze on him out of the corner of his eye but he keeps his own gaze on Peter, grinning at him. To his utter relief, Peter grins back wetly. 

“You’re the same age as my aunt—”

“Peter Benjamin, don’t you dare finish that sentence,” May says, tweaking his nose again.

“I was gonna call you young!” 

“Sure you were.” Tony lets a smile through at the laugh that Peter lets out, clear and bright and youthful, like sunshine. May stands up, hands still cupping Peter’s face, kisses his forehead and lets go, then perches on the arm of his chair, slinging her arm around him and almost as an afterthought, kissing his temple too. Peter squirms but leans into her automatically, loosely wrapping both arms around her waist and resting his head against her stomach. Tony feels his eyes sting with tears as he watches them. May looks at him, eyes unreadable, raising a brow challengingly. 

_This could’ve been yours_ , some part of him whispers. And Tony aches. He doesn’t know if he’s aching for Maria to have been like May or aching to be in May’s place. 

“So, Mr. Parker,” he says, because talking is better than thinking, “You mentioned that you have super-healing, wanna tell me about some of those other bug features you’ve got so I can improve your suit?” 

“Spiders aren’t bugs, they’re arachnids,” Peter says, voice muffled by May’s white linen shirt. Then he jerks. “Wait…my suit? Oh, shit—please forget I corrected you—”

Tony snorts. “Calm down, bug.” 

Peter scrunches his nose and Tony sees Mary; he sighs and Tony sees Richie. “Fair enough.” 

“So, tell me and your aunt about those powers of yours. Why don’t you start with how you got them, and we can go from there?” 

May frowns slightly, glancing down at Peter. “Yeah, hon, how’d you get them?”

Peter taps his palm again, shifts hesitantly, chews his bottom lip. “Do you remember when I got sick in January? And I—I stopped wearing my glasses afterwards, but you thought it was because Flash was giving me shit about them, not because it was related to me being sick—I didn’t even think it could be related to me being sick but—” May nudges him gently. “Not the point, right. Well—I guess—when I was on that freshman Aca-Dec trip to Oscorp, I got bit by a spider in one of their labs and I didn’t realize that it was a spider _from_ the lab, and in my defense, it looked like a normal spider, but I got home and puked my guts out and passed out—" 

“And you had a fever of 105 and slept for three days,” May finishes quietly. Tony’s eyes widen; it’s clear they hadn’t taken Peter to a hospital from her words, and it’s probably a good thing, but he doesn’t want to think about why. He doesn’t want to think about the two of them panicking over Peter, who they could’ve lost like Richard and Mary. “You’re telling me a spider did that to you?”

Peter shrugs halfheartedly. “Why do you think I’m Spider-Man?” At May’s look, he winces. “Sorry. Yeah…it was the spider. I woke up and—well, it’s like my senses were dialed to eleven. It’s constantly like that, kinda. The glasses did the opposite of helping—plus, you don’t really need glasses when you have enhanced vision.” 

“You get sensory overload a lot, then?” Tony asks. 

“I—yeah. Not something new for me, but—something that got worse. I’ve got enhanced hearing too, and strength, and—well, you know about the healing. The spider fucked up my DNA, pretty much, I think. Pretty sure it’s all different, but I can’t exactly run those tests in a school lab.” 

Tony pauses, half-forming a theory. “And your…web thingies? Those biological?” 

“Ew, no—I made ‘em. The web-shooters and the webs.” 

“And you did that in a lab at school?” 

“Well—yeah,” Peter says sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. “It’s a simple chemical base, but not simple enough that I can just make it with kitchen chemicals, plus May’d kill me if I blew up the kitchen again. All the labs at school have the ingredients I need, so then I can just mass-produce it and store it wherever for when I need it.” 

Tony shakes his head in disbelief. _He’s so much like his parents._

“You’re smart, bug.” 

Peter goes red, ducks his head, mumbles, “Thank you.” May’s carding her hand through his hair, nails scratching his scalp gently. She gives Tony an indecipherable look. 

He doesn’t like that she can read him but he can’t read her. 

“Don’t thank me for telling the truth.” He stands up, brushing his jeans off, and nods to May. “Thank you for the tea, Mrs. Parker.”

“Let me walk you to the door, Dr. Stark,” May says. She gets to her feet and taps Peter’s head. “We’re gonna have Thai tonight, sound good?” 

Peter nods as he turns to look at Tony. “I—thank you, Mr. Stark.” Tony offers his hand for Peter to shake. The kid’s grip is firm, hands as calloused as his own, and when he stands, they’re eye to eye. 

“Anytime, Mr. Parker. I’ll have that suit sent over here in a few days, how ‘bout?” 

Peter’s eyes light up as he grins. “That—awesome. Yes, thank you so much.” 

Tony steps back, leans down to pick his phone up from the coffee table, taps the screen, and hums when May’s phone buzzes on the kitchen counter. She raises a brow at him. “That’s my personal number—it’s up to you whether or not the bug gets it.” 

Peter tugs on May’s sleeve, already opening his mouth to plead with her, and she swats at him. “Let me walk him out first, Pete.” He huffs but drops her sleeve, settling back in his chair, slinging his legs over the armrest and pulling his own phone from his sweatshirt pocket, putting his earbuds back in. 

Tony watches him, taking in his casual pose; most people wouldn’t notice the way his eyes glance up from his phone every few seconds to check the door and windows, or the tenseness in his shoulders that’s almost imperceptible, or the way he taps his foot against the side of the chair every seven seconds exactly. He’s _fourteen._

May clears her throat. “Let me walk you to the door,” she repeats. 

Tony lets her. 

But his eyes stay on Peter, the fourteen-year-old boy who is not a soldier, but who carries the weight of the world on his shoulders. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so that was that, the first chapter!! i really hope you liked it, leave a comment if you did please please please (especially if you. found this fic on your own and you’ve never heard of this ship before because it is you i crave validation from most of all) 
> 
> second chapter will be up in two weeks!!
> 
> again, fic playlist can be found [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2vm1hGpZNndNg54JO4jUrM?si=XIGANf-OSH2WHuYl8EBUww)
> 
> and i’m on tumblr [here](https://angxlsgrxce.tumblr.com/) (@angxlsgrxce)


	2. not about angels

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> nyello!! i'm back again with chapter two, right on time!!
> 
> fic playlist can be found [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2vm1hGpZNndNg54JO4jUrM?si=XIGANf-OSH2WHuYl8EBUww)! (i've added a couple new songs, listen in order because i had a big brained moment and realized it's following the events of the fic,,,,the songs are telling the story too,,,)
> 
> tw for this chapter: mentions of abusive parents (first flashback), minor homophobia (second flashback), and flowery descriptions of a panic attack in the first 2016 scene (if you see another thing that needs a trigger warning, please let me know in the comments, i'll add it!!!)
> 
> hope y'all enjoy!!

_December 19, 1991._

_Manhattan, New York City, New York._

“Is he—”

“He’s in there, yeah.” 

Their voices are hushed. Tony hears them as if they’re screaming. He meets his reflection’s eyes, taking in his gaunt appearance. His skin is too pale, the circles under his eyes are too dark, his lips are too cracked; he looks like someone had thrown dirty water on a picture of him and left the paper to dry in the sun. Distorted. Wrong. 

He sits down at the vanity, trembling hands reaching for Maria’s extensive makeup collection. _Foundation first_ , her voice reminds him, _then concealer._ He starts to rub the products into his skin, watching himself transform in the mirror. _Come, bambino—this gives us power. They can’t see the toll they take on us if we cover it up._ He swallows tightly, closing his eyes, gripping the brush in his hands hard enough to snap the stem. 

“Jim, don’t. He doesn’t—he doesn’t want to talk to anyone right now.” 

“He needs us. He needs you. You’re telling me you’re content to just wait out here while he’s in there?” 

“Don’t do that. You know I’m not, but…I can’t force him to feel. I’m respecting what he asked, and that was for me to wait out here. We both know pushing him won’t do any good.” 

Tony sucks in a deep, shuddering breath, forcing the pressure on his chest, in his heart, to go away. He opens his eyes, sets the pieces of the brush down, starts to pick the glass shards out of his palm mechanically. 

“I…you’re right. You’re right, I just—”

“I know. I want to help him too.” 

Tony can picture them standing there, Ben angled towards Rhodey but keeping his body in between him and the oak door, Rhodey standing stiff but still three inches short of Ben’s 6’4, his arms folded across his chest as Ben keeps his by his side, both in black suits. He can see Rhodey clenching his fists, the tic that took Tony years to get used to, and Ben tapping his fingers on his thigh in time with his heartbeat, the tic that Tony found himself copying as a grounding technique. 

He brushes his hands on the vanity, trying to get the rest of the glass out, and his nails catch on a scratch in the wood veneer. He digs his nails farther into the scratch. He’d been seven when it happened, when he’d accidentally brought a scrap of metal in while she was doing her makeup, when he’d scraped it on the surface of the table as he set it down, when he’d been too eager to look pretty like his mamma. When he’d had to wipe all of the makeup she painted onto him off before they went down to dinner with Howard. 

He’s crying before he can stop himself, hot, angry tears streaming down his face as he crumples, burying his face in his hands. He digs his nails into his skin now, remembering the feeling of the wood but pressing deeper, seeking blood as he realizes that he ruined the makeup he’s done, that he’ll have to start over. 

Then there’s arms around him, a broad chest against his back, gentle hands taking his, lips pressing kisses to his fingertips, a soft voice murmuring in his ear. Ben. 

“Mamma,” he sobs, “Ho bisogno di te.” 

Rhodey’s bony hands replace Ben’s rough ones on Tony’s, Ben’s arms tug him gently from the stool to cradle him close. Tony shakes with the force of his sobs; Ben holds him steady. He presses his face to Ben’s neck, gasping for air against the starched collar of his shirt, hands scrabbling to clutch at Rhodey. Ben’s lips press against his temple, nose nuzzling his hair, keeping him grounded. 

“We’re here, angel,” Ben murmurs. 

“I want my mamma,” Tony chokes out. 

He wants her gentle arms around him, the strength in her shown by how tightly she held him, the way her thick hair would fall out of her braid and tickle the back of his neck as she carded a gentle hand through his unruly hair, her scent of roses and honeysuckle filling his nose when he pressed his face to her shirt, and her delicate voice singing in Italian, French, Spanish, whatever language that felt like home, protection, safety. 

She stopped hugging him like that when he turned ten. 

“I want my mamma,” he whispers, and he’s begging for the woman she was, the mother she was. The one who kissed his tears, who bandaged his cuts, who called him _bambino_ , who taught him to play piano, who read him to sleep, who loved him the way a mother should. Before Howard beat the love out of her. Before resentment grew in love’s place. 

He cries for his mamma, Maria Carbonell, the woman who loved him, and wets Ben’s collar with his tears. 

They stay like that for enough minutes that Tony loses count; his body cradled in Ben’s lap on the floor, his feet tucked under Rhodey’s thigh, his hands clutching Rhodey’s jacket, his face pressed to Ben’s neck. 

Rhodey squeezes his ankle twice, fingers tapping through the fabric of his sock. Tony hears the rustle of his clothes as he pulls away, hears the floor creak as he moves to the door, hears the door shut as he moves into the hallway. 

“He’s getting water,” Ben says into his hair before Tony can lose track of his breathing.

“It’s not for him,” Tony whispers, pressing past Ben’s collar to rest his nose against his skin. “I’m not—I won’t grieve him. It’s not for him.”

Howard will be grieved by the country, Tony knows, the country who knows him as the great businessman, as the man who revolutionized weapons, as America’s protector. Tony knows him by clenched fists and mottled bruises, by the smell of whiskey and broken glass, by the darkness of a closet and the sound of wood breaking. Tony knows him by muffled screams and knuckles splitting skin, by broken bones and smiles for the cameras, by pain and vulnerability and _fear_. 

“But I have to act like it’s for him, because—because I can’t grieve her, because she wasn’t anything and he was everything, because people don’t care about a woman, people don’t care that she helped people and that all he did was cause pain, because how do you help people with weapons when they’re just a tool of fear? He just cared about fear, that’s all he ever cared about—he took her away from me, he scared her into not loving me anymore, I lost her because of him, he killed her, it was his fault, Ben—it was his fault. He never told me he loved me, you know—and once he scared her enough, she stopped telling me it too. Aren’t…aren’t parents supposed to love their kids?” He forces his lungs to take a breath, licks his chapped lips, tastes the salt of his own tears. “Why didn’t they love me?”

Ben doesn’t answer for 29 seconds; Tony counts each one. “They were never supposed to be parents.” 

“I tried to be the son they wanted—I tried so hard, I always failed, why did I always fail?”

“Because you couldn’t have been the son they wanted when they never wanted a son in the first place, angel,” Ben whispers, and Tony hears his voice wavering, feels his hands shaking, until he shifts Tony in his arms, and Tony hears him swallow a sob, feels his jaw set. “They didn’t deserve you.” 

“I don’t want to be deserved, I just—I just want to be loved,” Tony sobs, “I just want to be loved.” 

“Oh—” Ben breathes, and then he’s pulling Tony back, cupping his face firmly, skating his thumbs over his cheeks, meeting his eyes. “Listen to me, Tony. They might not have loved you. But that doesn’t mean you didn’t have a family. Can I tell you who your family is, love?” 

“Please.” Wet eyelashes stick to his skin as he blinks, hands shake as he brings them up to cover Ben’s, lips bleed as he chews them. And tears fall as Ben starts to speak again. 

“Edwin Jarvis is your family. Anna Jarvis is your family. Your Aunt Peggy, and Jim and Momma Robbie, they’re your family. Jeannie too. Richie’s your family, and Tony…angel, I’m your family. I’m yours. You’re mine. I love you. The absence of their love doesn’t mean the absence of ours.” Ben taps his fingers against Tony’s temples, slides his hands around to rest on the back of Tony’s neck, rests his thumbs on Tony’s pulse points. “Okay?”

Tony swallows back another sob and searches Ben’s eyes. The love isn’t hidden behind a fog of drunkenness, it isn’t hidden behind a fire of anger; it isn’t hidden at all. “I love you too,” he whispers, “I love you too.” 

Ben leans in and Tony meets him halfway. The kiss tastes like the salt of his tears, the mint of Ben’s toothpaste, the blood of his lips. And it tastes like home. 

_June 29, 2016._

_Esopus, New York._

The first thing Tony notices is the faint sensation of itchiness on his left forearm, a stickiness underlying it. The second thing is a hand wrapped around his right wrist, a raised scar across the pinky that’s resting over his bone. 

“Hey, platypus,” he mumbles. The beeping of the EKG drums into his head, fluorescent lights tinting his vision pink through his closed eyelids. 

“You’re an idiot.” Tony shakes his head halfheartedly, feeling the rubber of the oxygen cannula brush against his lips, hearing the beeping increase its tempo, sensing Rhodey’s look of exasperation. “It’s helping you breathe, Tones. Don’t panic.” But the pressure on his wrist increases a bit more as Rhodey squeezes his wrist to ground him. 

“Count?”

Rhodey taps gently on his wrist in time with his counts of six; as Tony breathes with them, the beeping evens out to match. The rubber tube touches his lips again, but this time, his heart rate stays the same. Rhodey keeps counting and Tony keeps breathing, becoming aware of the starchy hospital gown he’s in, the bare skin of his shoulders resting against the sheets, the fluffed pillows under his head, the IV in his left arm kept in place by the tape, the bandages around his chest. The bandages around his chest. 

“Hey, no—Tony, breathe, c’mon,” Rhodey says frantically as the beeping increases rapidly. “Genius, I’ve got you, you’re safe. You’re safe. C’mon, open your eyes. I’ve got you.”

Tony forces his eyes open, breath caught in his chest as he stares at the ceiling, spots dancing in front of his vision, the weight of a shield pressing down on his chest. He blinks and the white ceiling gives way to dark concrete. _He’s my friend._ He blinks again and the concrete is gone; Steve’s face, tight with anger, is in its place. Tony scrambles to put his hands up, to guard his neck, to use his repulsors, to protect himself, but the gloves of his suit aren’t there. Scarred, bruised, trembling hands are. 

He sees the white plastic of a medical bracelet around his wrist, the end of the IV needle in his arm, the veins in the back of his hands. He hears the EKG beeping, the sound of Rhodey’s voice, the faint buzzing of the lights above them. He doesn’t see Steve. He doesn’t hear Barnes. 

He breathes. 

Rhodey’s hands gently take his, bringing them away from his face, lacing their fingers together, resting their joined hands on the blankets covering Tony’s legs. 

“You’re safe.” 

“You’ve got me,” Tony whispers, squeezes Rhodey’s hands, offers a frail smile.

“That’s right, I’ve got you and I’m not letting go, genius. We don’t let go of each other, right?”

Tony tilts his head in a weak impression of a nod. “Love you, platypus.”

Rhodey just looks at him, eyes tired but filled with relief.

“Love you, platypus,” Tony repeats, voice cracking halfway through the sentence, and Rhodey sighs. 

“I love you too. I want you to stop doing dumbass things.” 

“I’m a genius, I don’t do dumbass things at all.” 

“Yes, you do, Tones, and I just—you really scared me. You really fucking scared me, genius, and I don’t know what I’d do if we lost you. It was the palladium all over again, because you didn’t tell anyone, and you could’ve died, you almost died, you _did_ die. Twice on that table while they were operating and I couldn’t do anything about it…I could’ve lost you and I wouldn’t have been able to do anything because you didn’t tell anyone.” Rhodey stares at him, hands clutching his. The circles under his eyes are more prominent than normal, the furrow of his brow is more creased than usual, the rawness of his voice is sharper than it’s ever been before. His eyes are bloodshot and red-rimmed, his cheeks are stained with tear tracks. 

“I didn’t think I needed to—”

“You were going to an underground Hydra bunker to fight six operatives just like Barnes!”

Tony drops his eyes to their hands, studying his fingers tangled with Rhodey’s, his nails with grease still caked underneath in some spots, their callouses, the hangnail Rhodey has on his left pinky, the scars they both have scattered across their hands from years of work. _Workers hands_ , Tony thinks, _hands made to build and break and shape and mold._

“Tony.” Rhodey’s voice is quieter this time. “What happened in that bunker?”

“The supersoldiers—they were all dead. Zemo killed them, or—or they’d been dead for years. I—I don’t know. But it wasn’t them that I was up against.” _Did you know?_ “Zemo, his whole thing was…it was about destroying the team, the Avengers. I don’t know why, he just…he wanted us torn apart. I didn’t think he was gonna succeed, but this whole time, he’d been looking for something, something that he thought would work.” _I didn’t know it was him._ “He found a mission file, and then he found a tape. And getting us to Siberia, that bunker, it—it was all part of the plan. He didn’t care about the soldiers, about killing us. He thought—well, he was right, he didn’t just think, but—Steve stopped, so, that’s something.” _Don’t bullshit me, Rogers. Did you know?_ “It—the tape—it was security footage, from a mission, from December 16th, 1991, and it—it was Barnes, Hydra, whoever—” _Yes._ “And Steve _knew_. I—it was my fault, I shot first, but—he killed my mamma—he _killed_ her, it wasn’t Howard, but it was, and I just—I didn’t know what to do, and Steve _knew_ —”

“Rogers was the one who hurt you?” 

Tony can hear the danger in the question, can see the fire in Rhodey’s eyes without needing to look up. “He put his shield through my chest,” he whispers. Rhodey makes a terrifying noise but he doesn’t let go of Tony’s hands, and for that, he’s grateful. He needs his best friend, his Rhodey, with him. “I’m okay.” 

“You’re not,” Rhodey hisses, “Because he _hurt_ you. He could’ve killed you, he almost did kill you!” 

_He’s my friend._

“I tried to kill Barnes.” 

“No, you didn’t.” Tony blinks and takes his eyes off the blanket to look at Rhodey. Rhodey meets his gaze unflinchingly. “You didn’t, Tones, because if you had tried to, he’d be dead. I don’t care if he’s got some souped-up version of Rogers’s serum running through his veins, he’d be _dead_. Enhanced humans have nothing on your tech, we’ve seen that proven time and time again. If you wanted to kill him, genius, you would have. You didn’t. You were angry and upset and you wanted to hurt him, but you didn’t want to kill him. Rogers wanted to kill you—” 

“He wanted to incapacitate me—” 

Rhodey’s hands twitch and Tony knows he wants to clench them into fists, to punch something, but he still doesn’t let go. “Maybe he did! And you wanted to incapacitate Barnes!” 

“Rhodey—” 

“Christ, Tony, if you tell me to breathe, I’ll…I’m sorry.” 

Tony squeezes his hands. “I know. You don’t have to be. You’re angry.” 

“Why aren’t you?” Rhodey asks, eyes burning. “Because you sure as hell deserve to be.” 

_So was I._

“I’m just—I’m just tired. I don’t…I don’t want to be angry anymore. That’s what Zemo wanted, and God, it _worked_ , and I—if I had been stronger, this wouldn’t have happened. I don’t know. But Zemo wanted to tear us apart, and it worked, because I snapped, and Steve…” 

_Stay down, final warning._

“Rogers snapped too.”

_I can do this all day._

“Yeah,” Tony whispers, “Yeah.”

“How long has he known?” 

“If I had to guess…since he took down the Triskelion. Or…sometime since then. I don’t know. I don’t care.” But he does care. He cares more than he wants to admit, cares more than he ever should have, because the Avengers weren’t his family.

“Two years,” Rhodey says quietly. “Two fucking years he could’ve told you.” 

“Rhodey…”

“I know. I know.” 

“I’m okay. Don’t look at me like that—okay. I’m alive. I’ll work on okay. But I’ve got you. I’m safe.”

“Yeah, you’re safe, and you’re staying that way.” 

“I love it when you get all protective, honeybear,” Tony teases, and feels a rush of relief as Rhodey lets a smile slip, rolls his eyes, shoves Tony’s leg.

“Yeah, yeah. I wouldn’t have to be protective if you didn’t make stupid decisions.” 

“You were born to be protective, I’m just helping you out.” 

Rhodey snorts, and Tony grins, and it feels okay. 

_March 20, 1994._

_Queens, New York City, New York._

“Prendila in culo da un ciuccio imbizzarrito,” Tony mutters, the pasty, overweight, bald man from the board meeting earlier that day still at the front of his mind. He jams his key into the lock, hands shaking with rage as he turns it violently. The tumblers of the lock click and he yanks the key out, shoving the door open. “Mammalucco, vaffanculo a chi t’è morto.” 

Ben glances over his shoulder, paint streaked across his cheek, covering his hands, staining his shirt. “Put a dollar in the swear jar.” 

“Fuck you too!” Tony snaps, dropping his keychain—woven leather in the shape of a wrench, courtesy of Mary—in the bowl by the door. 

“Hey,” Ben says. He sets his paint palette down on the kitchen table, wipes his hands on his jeans, turns to meet Tony’s gaze. His eyes are hurt. Tony’s stomach plummets with guilt. 

“Sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“Yes, you did. But I know you’re sorry.”

Ben doesn’t let him look away, even from across the room. Tony squeezes his hands into fists, relaxes them, repeats, then rubs them together, missing the feeling of grease on his skin. He hasn’t been in his workshop in weeks. 

“Swear jar,” Ben prompts him gently, and Tony turns back to the side table by their door, tucks a five dollar bill into the mason jar they painted together on their balcony, as Ben turns back to his painting, picks his palette back up. 

The guilt wells up from his stomach to his throat, a cloud of smog that threatens to choke him. He loosens his tie and slips it off his neck, unbuttons his collar and toes his shoes off, wriggles out of his jacket and hangs it over the nearest chair. Ben stays focused on his painting, humming under his breath, feigning calmness, but his jaw is tense. 

“Benny,” Tony starts, then stops. He chews his lip, moves across the room, ends up pressed against Ben’s back, arms tight around his waist, forehead resting at the spot between his shoulder blades. “I’m sorry.”

“I know, love.” 

“It was a rough day. Not—not an excuse.”

Ben’s smile is audible even if Tony can’t see his face. “No, not an excuse. Thank you for remembering that.” 

“How was your day?” he asks softly, kissing up and down Ben’s spine. 

“Mellow,” Ben hums, “Got to wake up with the love of my life in my arms, go for a walk in the park, paint for hours.”

Tony presses his reddening face against Ben’s back. “What’d you paint?” 

“Finished up that piece for the kitchen at work, the one of the firehouse? The guys have been on my ass to get it done, they want something colorful.” Ben’s words are annoyed, his tone fond. “They’re idiots.”

“You love them.”

“I know, I’ve got a thing for loving idiots,” Ben says pointedly. 

“I suppose I deserve that,” Tony mumbles against his shirt, tasting fuzzy cotton and dry paint on his lips. “Hey, how’d you get paint on your back?”

“Bumped the canvas earlier. Wanna tell me what happened today?” Tony hesitates, and is silent long enough for Ben to set his paintbrush down, reach back, squeeze his hip. “Angel?”

“Uh—sorry. Yes. I’m just—” 

“Out of it today. I can tell.”

Tony tightens his arms around Ben’s waist and rests his hands flat on his stomach, pressing his face more into his back. He snorts as Ben’s abs flex under his touch. “Show-off.”

“I do this for you, I’m allowed to show it off. Now stop changing the subject, you came in here and snapped at me, I’d like to know why,” Ben says softly, picking up the paintbrush again. Tony feels his shoulders flex as he reaches up to paint a broad stroke across the canvas. “Don’t call me a show-off again, you know I didn’t do that on purpose.” 

“Yes, you did,” Tony mutters. Ben sighs. “And why did I do it?”

“Because I like your muscles.” 

“Bingo. Stop changing the subject.” 

“I really hate them,” Tony whispers. Ben shifts against him, his hand finding Tony’s hip again and applying enough pressure for Tony to melt against his back. “They’re just—fucking assholes, y’know? They don’t consider the implications of any of their choices in terms of the employees at a base level, and they don’t listen to my suggestions because oh, what do I know, I’m only twenty-four, barely a kid, never mind the fact that I have a higher IQ than Howard and he was the same fucking age when he started working in a war zone, and maybe I have some new ideas I can bring to the table, and oh, it’s my fucking company! It’s my company and they don’t _care_ , they just care about money and when they’re gonna get laid next, and Obie’s never around to help, because he thinks I need to do it on my own, and maybe he’s right, but they never listen! And they’re all homophobic asses, and that fucking Peterson, he made a dig at you and I almost punched him—” Tony sucks in a sharp breath and keeps going, tensing against Ben as he grows angrier. “And none of them even know who you are, they just joke about the man I keep around for fun, and they keep saying I need to stop it and move on, I’m not eighteen anymore and sure, they all get the fun of experimenting,” he spits, “But I need to be realistic. Like you aren’t my future.” 

Ben stops painting. Tony feels him set the paintbrush down, feels him wipe his hand on his jeans again, feels him breathe in deeply. His other hand never leaves Tony’s hip, holding him and his rampant thoughts in place. “Breathe,” he murmurs, voice a little wet. 

“Benny?” 

“I’m fine, just—you said—” 

Tony falters, rewinding the tape of his mind and replaying his words. _Oh._ “I mean—yeah. Of course you are. We’ve had this conversation before.”

“I know, I just—” Ben takes one of his hands, and Tony feels paint from Ben’s skin transfer to his as Ben peppers kisses on his knuckles. “I really like hearing you say it.” 

“You’re my future,” Tony whispers into his back. 

Ben laughs. Tony can taste it, the citrus and sunflower of Ben’s joy. “Again?”

“You’re my future. You, Benjamin Zachary Parker, are my future, and I’m spending the rest of my life with you.” Tony feels the truth in his words, the weight of them lighter than ever on his tongue. The thoughts of a future with Ben don’t terrify him like they should—like his mind says they should—they just feel _right_. “You’re the love of my life.” Ben’s grinning, lips curved up where they’re pressed to Tony’s hand. “I’m gonna marry you,” he promises. 

“You’ve gotta get it legalized first,” Ben says, joy tinging his words. 

“I’ll work on that.” 

“I love you.” 

Tony kisses the spot between Ben’s shoulder blades where he knows there’s a cluster of freckles underneath his shirt. “I love you too, tesoro.” 

Ben leans back against him, still littering kisses all over his hand. Tony slips the hand resting on Ben’s stomach under his shirt, dragging his fingers up his skin as he goes on tiptoes, balancing himself against Ben to kiss the back of his neck.

Then his phone goes off, chiming the pattern Tony programmed in to indicate S.I. related calls. 

Tony feels every muscle in his body tense. Then Ben’s turning, reaching into his pocket, taking the phone out, barely glancing at it before ending the call, tossing the phone to their couch, then pulling away, heading towards their bedroom, all in one fluid motion. 

Tony freezes. 

Seconds later, Ben’s calling over his shoulder, “Breathe, angel,” and Tony does. “But stay out there, I’ll be back in a sec.” And Tony does. 

Ben comes back carrying his set of washable paints under his arm and a blanket slung over his shoulder. Tony beams. Ben kisses him gently, thumb swiping his cheek. “Sorry I scared you, love.”

“It’s okay, you’re about to make up for it,” Tony says happily, pulling back from Ben to start unbuttoning his shirt. Ben watches him for a few seconds too long and Tony raises an eyebrow. “You wanna take your shirt off too, handsome?” 

“No, I wanna take your shirt off for you.” 

Tony’s breath catches at the love in Ben’s voice. 

His hands fall to his sides as Ben sets the paints down on the table and moves forward to rest his right hand against Tony’s chest over his heart, undoing the rest of the buttons with his left hand, kissing every inch of skin that’s exposed as the shirt slips off. Tony feels the tension seeping out of him already and he buries his hands in Ben’s hair, tugs gently until Ben straightens up, lifts his head to look at him. 

Then they’re kissing, mouths sliding together, stealing the breath from each other’s lungs, Tony’s arms tight around Ben’s neck, Ben’s hands strong on his waist, bodies fitting together like they were molded for each other. Tony whispers _I love you_ ’s into Ben’s mouth and Ben kisses the words from his lips. 

Tony pulls back first, sinking back down onto the balls of his feet, resting his forehead against Ben’s chest, panting softly as he catches his breath. Then Ben pulls back, laying the blanket on the floor, settling onto the backs of his heels, spreading his paints out. 

“C’mere, angel,” he murmurs, and Tony does. 

Ben’s hands run over his arms, his chest, his stomach, as he spreads him out on the blanket, kneading the rest of the tension in his muscles away, thumbs pressing into the knots of his shoulders, his neck, his back. He pulls the anger out of Tony’s body, reaching inside with each press to his skin, coaxing it out with every kiss to his hair, brushing it away with every breath he takes. Tony breathes with him, head pillowed on his forearms, cheek resting on the blanket—found at a flea market two years ago, washed five times before using it, stained with paint from the many times they’ve done this. 

As Ben rubs his shoulders, Tony feels the calluses of his palms. As Ben moves down his spine, Tony feels the still-drying paint on his fingers. As Ben kneads his lower back, Tony feels the cracked skin of his knuckles. 

He knows Ben’s body just like Ben knows his.

“Check in,” Ben murmurs, voice barely louder than a whisper, but it’s enough to ground Tony, keep him anchored even as his mind floats. 

“‘m good,” he mumbles into the blanket. 

Ben kisses the back of his neck in unspoken praise, leaving a hand heavy on the small of his back as he reaches back for his paints. The pressure leaves for a second to be replaced by the tickling sensation of a dry paintbrush. Tony squirms. 

“Ben!” 

Ben’s laugh is warm, just like his hands as he brushes Tony’s hair out of his way, just like his eyes when Tony cranes his head around to peak a look at him, just like his lips when he kisses Tony’s nose softly. 

“Yes?”

“Asshole, you know I’m—hey!” He yelps as the paintbrush brushes over his sides, giggles as Ben’s fingers join it, shrieks with laughter as the tickling increases. “Cut it out—Ben!”

Ben’s hands still, resting flat against his skin. His lips land on Tony’s neck again, curving in a soft smile. “I just love your laugh.” 

Tony feels his face go red, breaking out into a broad grin he can’t hold back. “Okay,” he whispers, “Okay.”

Ben drags the tips of his fingers up Tony’s sides in response. Tony shivers as the paintbrush touches his skin again, this time wet with paint. He closes his eyes as Ben paints across his back; broad strokes, fine brushes, light taps. Ben’s touch is gentle, loving, grounding. 

“Relax, angel,” he murmurs. 

And Tony does. 

_July 13, 2016._

_Esopus, New York._

Rhodey’s hand is heavy on his shoulder, the whirring of the braces on his legs coupled with their breathing the only noise in the large room. Tony keeps his eyes on Rhodey’s face, keeps his hands away, because Rhodey wants to do this on his own. 

The parody of silence breaks when Rhodey falls. 

Tony drops to his knees, reaching out with anxious hands and frantic words. “Shit, honeybear—”

Rhodey waves him off. “I’m okay,” he grunts, forehead shining with sweat. “We knew this would take time. And I’m okay with the wheelchair. I’m okay.”

They both know he’s saying it to make it true. 

Tony nods, standing up and staying back as Rhodey pushes himself to his feet, grips the parallel bars, takes a step. He walks next to him, hands fiddling with the zipper of his sweatshirt, the belt loops on his jeans, the loose curl from his hair, keeping himself from reaching out again. 

“Tones,” Rhodey says gently. “I’ve got this.”

“I know. You’re too stubborn to let something like paralysis stop you.” 

“Oh, I’m stubborn?”

Tony laughs. “Who else would I have learned it from?”

The laugh stops as quickly as it starts, smile peeling off his face like the skin of an orange. Rhodey goes quiet, slows to a stop, takes his hand off the bars, squeezes his shoulder. “Is it time to tell me what happened with him?” 

“I—” Tony swallows tightly. “One condition.” 

“Anything, genius,” Rhodey says. 

_Anything_ , Rhodey says, and means it.

“Don’t be so dramatic. I just want you to keep walking. While—while we talk.” 

Rhodey nods and takes another step. His hand doesn’t leave Tony’s shoulder. 

“He’s in a coma, Rhodey,” Tony whispers. “He got shot in February. I didn’t—FRI didn’t tell me that part. She didn’t dig past finding out the kid’s identity. And—oh. The kid—Peter—he’s Richie’s. And Richard and Mary, they’re—they’re gone. They died when Peter was five. Ben’s in a coma and Richie and Mary are dead.” 

Rhodey doesn’t stop moving forward, his hand doesn’t stop squeezing Tony’s shoulder, but his breath stutters, his steps falter, his knuckles go white on the bar. 

“And Peter’s fourteen, Rhodey. He’s a kid. He—”

“He’s the same age you were,” Rhodey says quietly. “The same age you were when we met. How much is he like you?” 

Tony falters, looks at his Rhodey, opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again. “He—he’s not. He looks like Richie and he’s got Mary’s eyes and Ben’s tics and—” 

“And he’s a kid trying to save the world.”

Tony goes still. “Don’t.” 

“Tones—” 

“I said _don’t_. He’s Ben through and through, okay? And his aunt, too. He’s got all of her in him. She—Rhodey—he doesn’t—their marriage isn’t real.” 

Tony stops, sucks in a shaky breath, and Rhodey waits, just like he always does. He knows Tony isn’t done.

“He met her a month after I—after I left him. They got married right after Richard and Mary died—it was for convenience, for Peter, for stability. He doesn’t—she said he never moved on. And now he’s in a coma, and I—I can’t—I can’t fix things.” 

“Tony,” Rhodey says quietly, “You left him. You were never going to fix things. The only reason this happened is because you found the kid.”

“But now it has happened, and—” 

“And you left him. You _left_ him, Tony. I don’t know if you can fix that, and you have to be okay with that. You have to be.” 

“I—I don’t know if I can,” Tony whispers. 

“You have to. Even if he didn’t move on—even if he still loves you.” 

“I still love him, Rhodey.” 

Rhodey looks at him with sad eyes. 

“I know, Tones. I know. But you made your choice.” 

“I know,” he whispers. 

Rhodey takes another step, and this time, Tony takes it with him. 

“What are you gonna do about the kid?”

“I—I gave him the suit. I sent it over a week ago, he can’t keep fighting in pajamas.”

“You want to try and mentor him,” Rhodey concludes. Tony nods. 

“He needs someone.” 

“Okay. I’m not gonna stop you.” 

Tony offers him a wet smile. “Thank you.” 

The corner of Rhodey’s mouth twitches up. “Always, genius.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so that was that chapter!! lemme know what y'all thought, i crave validation and i am about to have to do something draining so comments would be great to come back to :D
> 
> (for those curious, ben painted,,,angel wings on his back. i'm weak for them and yes that's the reason this is the chapter title) 
> 
> find me on tumblr [@angxlsgrxce](https://angxlsgrxce.tumblr.com/)!!
> 
> love you all, thank you for reading <3


	3. bruises

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im so sorry this is so late, i posted an update about it on my tunglr but for those who didn't know i was on vacation so i didn't have a chance to write and now i'm finally getting this up, i'm really sorry and i am going to try and keep to as regular a posting schedule as i can (posting days will be fridays now, every other week)
> 
> but i hope the quality of this chapter makes up for the lateness? it's one of my favorites because of the third scene, so i hope y'all enjoy!!!
> 
> (fic playlist is [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2vm1hGpZNndNg54JO4jUrM?si=XIGANf-OSH2WHuYl8EBUww))
> 
> (tw for this chapter: panic attack in the third scene, mentions of a stab wound, mentions of ben's shooting)

_July 24, 2016._

_Queens, New York City, New York._

It’s raining, drops tap tap tapping the pavement outside, humidity rolling off the air in almost-visible waves, puddles pooling in every dip of the concrete, clouds darkening the sun of a New York summer day. People rush by outside, and Tony watches as a teenager steps in a puddle, watches as a businessman yanks his jacket over his head, watches as a young woman pulls a polka-dotted umbrella from her small purse. 

Tony watches the city from a viewpoint he doesn’t get anymore, from the ground, among the busyness, not from a penthouse, not among the clouds. 

He misses it. 

May had texted him the address of the café earlier that morning, paired with a time to meet and nothing else. It’s crowded, filled with people and chatter, but cozy. Tony’s in a chair by the window, in the corner to keep an eye on his exits, stirring a biodegradable cardboard cup of hot chocolate. _You can’t drink coffee anymore_ , Rhodey’s voice had said sternly when he’d gone to order. 

May’s late, by at least an hour. It could be a mistake, could be traffic, could be the rain. 

Or it could be her way of silently telling him that he’s insignificant to her. 

He’s not dumb enough to assume it’s not. 

The bell over the door jangles and Peter’s excited rambling joins the mixing-pot of voices surrounding Tony. His hands are in constant motion, running through his hair to get the rainwater out, fiddling with everything and anything he can touch. As he goes over to order, his left hand drops to tap on the side of his thigh. The same motion Tony’s doing to count his breaths. The same motion he picked up from Ben. 

His heart aches. 

May kisses the side of Peter’s head, cards her hand through her hair to get the rest of the water out, turns to catch Tony’s eye, nods her head towards a table with three chairs, looks back to Peter before he can attempt to protest. He bites the inside of his cheek and stands up, sitting down in the new chair and watching as a college-aged kid takes the spot with a grin. 

Peter bounces on the balls of his feet as he waits for his order, a ball of pent-up energy, and Rhodey’s question echoes in his ears again. _How much is he like you?_ Tony rubs his eyes, pulls the brim of his baseball cap a bit lower, exhales slowly. 

May says something to Peter, nudging him with a gentle elbow to his ribs, and Peter turns to see him, a smile as bright as the sun splitting his face. 

“Mr. Stark!” he exclaims.

Tony tenses and looks around quickly, but the café is loud enough to absorb the kid’s outburst, to make it just another piece to the puzzle of noises surrounding them.

“Hey, bug.” 

Peter’s smile goes impossibly wider, eyes crinkling at the corners, nose scrunching just a bit. It’s infectious, just like Richie’s had always been, and Tony offers a true smile in return for the gift Peter’s giving him. The barista behind the counter calls Peter’s name and he grabs the plastic coffee cup from her, thanking her by name. 

He takes the seat facing the front door, the seat that Tony had left open for him, the seat that Tony knew he would take. His eyes flick to the door every few seconds, the same way they had in the apartment, as he sips at his iced coffee. Tony raises a brow at him.

“That decaf?”

Peter wrinkles his nose. “Unfortunately. Caffeine screws with my powers.” 

“Caffeine screws with my heart,” Tony says sympathetically.

“Watch your language around my kid.” Her voice is light; her eyes are sharp. Tony’s easy smile gets a little less easy. 

“May!” Peter hisses, his cheeks bright red. “You can’t tell him to watch his language, he’s like—well, I don’t know what he’s like, but you can’t! He’s Iron Man!” 

Tony’s eyes sting at the awe in Peter’s voice, the worship in his eyes, the trust in his words. _He’s Iron Man._ Peter still manages to be a child, after losing his parents when he was so young, still manages to hold onto shreds of his torn innocence, after watching his uncle get shot.

“I may be Iron Man, but I’ve got nothing on your aunt,” Tony says, winking at Peter, leaning back in his chair. 

Both May and Peter tilt their heads to the side, Peter’s to the left, May’s to the right, brows furrowing, eyes narrowing slightly. It’s eerie, the duality to their actions. 

It’s terrifying, when Tony realizes they’re seeing through his mask. 

Peter clears his throat, straightens up, shakes his coffee to mix the ice around. May just narrows her eyes further, takes a sip of her own coffee, watches Tony. 

Watches Tony.

“So—” Tony claps his hands together and rubs his palms, pointing at Peter with his joined fingers. “We’ve come to talk training, yeah?” 

“I—we have?” 

Tony laughs at the shock on Peter’s face, in his eyes, taking out a Stark Industries tablet and holding it out to Peter. “I wrote up a list of your abilities, best I could do without a scan or a lab test, had my A.I. calculate the best training regimen for you. That suit I made for you can do a lot, bug, but you’re untrained and you don’t know how to use your powers.” 

Peter’s flinch is tiny, almost imperceptible. May and Tony both catch it, May settling her hand on Peter’s shoulder and shooting a glare at Tony, Tony wincing and tapping his thigh harder. 

“Who’s gonna train me?” Peter asks, voice quiet, eyes still on the tablet. Then his hand twitches, his jaw tenses slightly, and his voice goes back to what Tony has deemed normal for the kid; energetic, bubbly, excited. Fake. “I mean—the Avengers are who knows what now, no offence, Mr. Stark, but none of the ones left, who didn’t break the law, are enhanced, and I’m not saying you can’t train me, just that…hey, what’s even gonna happen with the Avengers?”

Tony’s hand goes to his chest on autopilot, presses down, rubs the reconstructed sternum, feels his heart beating. 

“I—I’m gonna be honest, bug, I don’t know. But as of right now, War Machine and I are working with the U.N. to amend the Sokovia Accords, so that—so that they’re humane and act as protection for superheroes and the world.”

“Is that in your speech?” Peter asks.

“I—what?”

He huffs and looks up, shrugging as he says, “It sounds like something you’d say at a press conference.” 

Tony can’t hold back the laugh Peter’s tiny smirk causes. “Maybe so, but I like to keep my secrets.” 

“You should get a new speech writer, Mr. Stark,” Peter teases. 

The scary thing is that Tony can’t tell if the dancing light in his eyes, if the smirk that’s slowly turning into a grin, if the playful tone of voice, if the childhood innocence of it all, if any of it is fake. 

“I’ll consider it, you got any candidates you’d like to put forth?”

Peter snorts a laugh and shakes his coffee again, taps the ring finger of his left hand to his palm and flicks his eyes to the door, grins at his aunt and starts to ramble about one of his friends. Tony listens with one ear—“You know, he could probably hack your tech, Mr. Stark, couldn’t he, May?”—as he watches Peter’s actions. 

_He’s not a soldier_ , Tony thinks _, but he wears the armor of one._

Armor that Tony is very familiar with. 

_June 5, 1987._

_Boston, Massachusetts._

“Are you sure?” 

Ben’s voice is as soft as his eyes when Tony looks up to meet his gaze. He nods, squeezes Ben’s hand, kisses the back of it. 

“I’m sure. It’s been two months and…you—I—I trust you,” he says quietly, the words slipping from his tongue with hesitance but bursting at the seams with truth. “I trust you, Benny.” 

Ben’s smile sets off a swarm of butterflies in his stomach, makes his heart pound, makes his breath catch. 

“Okay, angel.”

Tony leans up to kiss the underside of Ben’s jaw, trying to ignore the way his free hand trembles in his pocket. The way Ben makes him feel terrifies him, fills him with hope, makes him feel like he’s flying. Or falling. Tony doesn’t know which one it is yet, but every piece of him hopes it’s flying. 

“Hey—look at me for a second,” Ben murmurs, and Tony does. 

“Yeah?” 

His voice wavers. 

Ben cups his face with both hands, thumbs brushing over his cheekbones. “You don’t have to show me yet if you aren’t ready. I know what this means to you. I—Tony, you—you’re amazing, and I’m willing to wait as long as you want. I’ll wait a whole year if you need it.” 

Tony laughs weakly. “A whole year?”

“A whole decade if you want, beautiful,” Ben says softly, kisses his forehead gently, adds, “A whole century.” 

“No—no, I want to show you. I mean it—I _trust_ you.” Tony doesn’t look away from Ben’s eyes, letting the emotionspainted across his face drown the fears in his head. “You make me—you make me feel safe,” he adds in a whisper. 

Ben’s hands leave his cheeks to take his hands from his pockets, pressing kisses to the calluses on his palms, the grease stains on his wrists, the scars on his knuckles. “I never want you to stop feeling that way.” 

“Then never leave me,” Tony says breathlessly. The words are terrifying and honest and desperate, they aren’t what he meant to say, but they’re what he means. 

“I won’t.” 

Ben’s words are a promise and in his eyes Tony sees a vow. 

The kiss Ben brushes to his lips is gentle and soft and tastes like citrus. 

“Okay,” Tony says, “I’m ready.” 

Ben squeezes his hands, then lets go of one of them so Tony can unlock the door to his workshop, the buttons of the keypad beeping quietly as he plugs in the code, wires still poking out of the top that Tony hasn’t bothered to cover yet. The lock clicks open. He opens the door with a hand that’s no longer trembling. 

Ben’s eyes go wide. “Oh— _angel_.” 

Tony watches as Ben steps inside, as he takes in the blueprints hastily taped to the walls, as he runs his hand over the half-built engine on one of the workbenches, as he smiles at the picture of Tony and Rhodey on another workbench, as he laughs when Dum-E rolls out of his charging station to ram into his leg, as he stands in the center of Tony’s workshop, the center of Tony’s lifeblood, a room where he breathes life into wires and gears and scraps of metal that have no meaning to so many people but that Tony sees the universe in, and whispers, “Thank you, Tony.” 

Tony swallows a sob, swallows the three words that jump into his throat, and instead presses himself into Ben’s arms and kisses him until he has no breath left, until there’s tears rolling down his cheeks and emotions too strong for him to understand welling up in his chest. 

Ben kisses his tears away, takes his hand, and walks around the workshop again and again. 

He listens as Tony explains each blueprint. He picks up a rubber ball that Dum-E drops at his feet and throws it across the lab for the robot to catch. He grins broadly at the polaroid from their first date that Tony tucked in between a wrench and a screwdriver. He asks questions about the lines of code Tony scribbled onto the back of a napkin. He watches and praises and understands. 

Tony doesn’t let go of his hand. 

And when Tony gets an idea, Ben sits down at one of the workbenches, the one with their picture, pulls him into his lap, hooks his chin over his shoulder, and holds him as Tony gets lost in graphs and measurements and ideas too big for Ben to understand. 

And when Ben kisses the crown of his head, the sun shines and the stars glow and the sky looks clear, and Tony thinks it is flying.

_August 3, 2016._

_New York City, New York._

Tony rotates the hologram of Rhodey’s braces, the blue light reflecting off the metal of the workbench he’s sitting on top of, legs crossed and bottom lip caught between his teeth. He taps the pin in the joint of the knee, adjusts it by a millimeter, then leans back. 

“Does that fix the issue, baby girl?” he calls out and the music pulsing from his speakers dims as FRIDAY’s voice takes over. 

“Shouldn’t that be a calculation you can make for yourself, boss?” 

He scowls at the closest camera. “I didn’t code you to be this snarky, did I?” 

“I must’ve picked it up somewhere.” 

“Guess so,” Tony says, affection welling up in his chest for her, spilling over into his voice. “What’s the verdict, babe?” 

“Peter Parker’s vitals have spiked,” she says, instead of the confirmation he was testing her for, “Sending his location to the Mark 41 now.” 

Tony’s hand slices through the hologram, body moving on instinct as he jumps off the workbench, allows the suit of armor to encase his body mid-air, steadies himself with the repulsors, then lets autopilot take over. 

“Show me his vitals,” he snaps, hands trembling inside his suit. FRIDAY pulls them up silently, the blue light blurs Tony’s vision before he blinks and refocuses his eyes, scanning the kid’s blood pressure, heart rate, body temperature, respiration rate. All of them are too high; too fast; _wrong_. “What happened, what does the last record of his suit show?” 

“His A.I. reports that Peter has contracted a wound on his lower abdomen, most likely from a knife. She did not have visuals in the moment when it happened.” 

Tony sucks in a sharp breath. “Max speed, _now_. Why the hell didn’t she have visuals?” 

“I don’t know, boss,” FRIDAY says. Tony bites back a curse. 

“What about visuals now? I need something, FRIDAY, she has to have something, or—fuck, let me talk to the kid—”

“Peter’s mask has been removed.” 

Tony’s heart stops.

“ _Why?_ ” 

“I don’t know—”

“Give me a breathing exercise.” An orange triangle appears on his HUD and he watches it, tracking his breathing, trying to keep it regular, trying to stay focused, because Peter needs him. 

Peter needs him. 

The triangle burns itself into his vision, appearing on his eyelids even when he blinks. The world below him is distorted, dark colors smearing like paint on a canvas, trees and water and land becoming one, blending into blocks of buildings and grids of streets, pools of yellow from the streetlights at every corner shining like tiny stars. 

He scans Peter’s vitals again, then chokes out, “Clear HUD, keep me updated if anything changes. How close are we?”

“One minute and seventeen seconds out, boss,” FRIDAY says calmly. “If I may suggest—” 

“Mute. Put updates on my HUD if needed.”

FRIDAY goes silent and all Tony hears is the ringing in his ears, the stuttered gasps of his own breathing, the whir of the suit as something recalibrates. 

The suit lands in an alley, illuminated only by the glare of a nearby streetlight and the neon sign of a 24-hour CVS across the street, empty save for the dumpster and graffiti scrawled across the walls. “Peter!” he calls out desperately, hands up, repulsors ready. 

No response. 

Tony’s breath quickens. 

“Peter, kiddo, I need you to—” He cuts himself off when he sees a crumpled form curled in a ball against the dumpster, head tucked between his knees, arms around his legs, shaking like a leaf. 

Tony is suddenly, shockingly reminded that Peter is only a child. 

He steps out of the suit, slowly moving to crouch by Peter’s side, carefully reaching out and letting his hand hover over Peter’s shoulder, keeping his voice gentle and quiet. _It’s like my senses were dialed to eleven._ “Can you hear me, bug? It’s Tony—Mr. Stark. Just give me a nod if you can hear me.” 

“‘s too loud,” Peter gasps out, “‘s too loud and I failed and I can’t breathe—Ben, I’m sorry—” 

“Oh—” Tony feels a sob building in the back of his throat and tears stinging his eyes. “Listen to me, Peter—it’s Mr. Stark. Can you look at me?” 

Peter whimpers, tucking in his head further, drawing his knees closer, holding himself tighter. “I’m sorry—I’m sorry—I tried, I tried so hard, Ben—I’m so sorry—”

“Peter—” 

“Ben—I tried, I promise—I promise—I’m sorry, I know I failed, I didn’t mean to fail, I didn’t mean to let you get hurt—I know it’s my fault—Ben—please come back—” 

Peter’s voice is wet, sobs cutting through his sentences at every pause, gasps for air taking the place of the broken words. The kid is drowning, panic pulling him further away from Tony, dragging him under. 

A wave roars in Tony’s ears. 

Peter needs him. 

“Bug, I’m gonna touch you now,” he says softly, lowering his hand until it rests against the smooth fabric of Peter’s suit. His thumb rests on Peter’s shoulder blade, fingers curled over his shoulder, pinky tapping in time with the triangle that appears when Tony closes his eyes. “Breathe, Peter. Breathe.” 

Peter shakes under his touch. 

“Breathe.” 

They stay like that, Tony’s hand on Peter’s shoulder, until Peter does. 

Tony doesn’t move, ignoring the ache in his knees from his crouch and the metal digging into his back from the dumpster behind him. 

Peter needs him. 

The sounds of the city waking up around them merge with Tony’s quiet counting and Peter’s shaky breaths in. A car honks and it echoes Tony’s murmur of _1, 2, 3, in_. The store next to them rolls up its grate and it mimics the shuddering gasp Peter lets out. The sun rises, colors painting the sidewalk, bathing them both in light. 

And Peter looks up. 

His face is streaked with tears, his hair is matted to his forehead, his eyes are bloodshot, but he looks up. 

“Hey, bug,” Tony whispers.

“Mr. Stark?” 

Tony gives him a grin, chucks his chin gently, brushes some stray tears away. “You betcha. Think you can stand up? I wanna take a look at your side, a little birdy told me you got hurt.” 

“Um—” Peter says weakly. “I don’t remember.” 

“That’s okay, kiddo. Wanna tell me what you do remember?” 

There’s a pause as Peter screws his eyes shut. Tony doesn’t take his hand off his shoulder. 

“I—oh. There—there was a mugger.” _He was shot by a mugger almost four months ago._ “I—I guess he had a knife. I—I let him get away. I let him get away, didn’t I?”

“No. You got hurt and you couldn’t fight back. You didn’t let anything happen, Peter.” _It was my fault._ “It wasn’t your fault. Okay?” He doesn’t wait for Peter to respond, to argue. “Let’s get you up so I can see your stab wound. Who knows, maybe it’ll scar, give you something badass to show off to girls. Or guys, I don’t know what you like.” 

“Both,” Peter says. Then he swallows tightly. “I, uh—I didn’t mean to say that. But—you like both too, right?” 

_Angel_ , Ben whispers. 

Tony rubs another tear off Peter’s face. “Yeah, bug, I like both. Thank you for telling me, even if you didn’t mean to. Ready to stand up?” 

“Yeah. Yeah.” 

Peter tries to push himself up; his knees buckle and his hand goes to his side, he inhales sharply in pain and his hand comes away sticky with blood. 

“Shit, kiddo—c’mere.” The metal against Tony’s back is helpful now, as he moves his hand to Peter’s elbow, braces himself, helps the kid up. Peter staggers, leans heavily against him, drops his head to Tony’s shoulder. “Oh, hey. No, Pete, I’m gonna need you to wake up for a second. Think you can lean against the wall right here?”

The dumpster ends up being an easier place to prop Peter against while Tony scans his body, FRIDAY talking quietly from his watch to update him on Peter’s vitals. Peter mumbles weakly about being hungry as Tony checks his eyes for signs of a concussion and only finds traces of lingering panic. 

“We can grab some food, promise,” Tony assures him, “Gotta get this patched up first.” 

Peter waves a hand, or tries to, and ends up hitting Tony in the forehead as he crouches to look at the tear in Peter’s suit. “It’ll heal on its own.” 

“I sure hope that means you haven’t gotten stabbed before.” 

“Once or twice, maybe,” Peter says casually, like Tony’s heart doesn’t stop when he hears that. “It’s okay.” 

Tony snorts when he sees Peter’s half-grin. “Alright, bug. The blood’s already clotting. I want you to clean it when you get home, though.” 

Peter hums and tips his head back to rest against the edge of the dumpster. Tony reminds himself to text May about making sure Peter showers. “Yeah, okay. Fair enough. Can we get food first?” 

“Yes, we can. Where’s your mask?” 

“Uh…” Peter lifts his head, blinking blearily as he looks around. “Somewhere.” 

They find the mask tucked halfway under the dumpster, the bright red an outlier against the dark concrete and green metal. Peter sniffs it and scrunches his nose. “Mr. Stark—” 

Tony’s already tugging off his sweatshirt—originally Rhodey’s, stolen by Tony in ‘89—and holding it out for the kid to wriggle into. 

“Thanks,” Peter whispers, pulling the sleeves down to cover his hands, drawing the hood up until it almost covers his eyes, nuzzling into the collar, relaxing into the warmth. Relaxing. 

Tony smiles. 

“No problem, bug.” 

Peter starts to laugh, and it sounds like sunshine. 

_January 11, 1989._

_Boston, Massachusetts._

“Do you want kids?” Tony asks, voice muffled by the pile of laundry on their bed that he face-planted in two minutes earlier when Ben took it out of the dryer. Ben glances over at him from where he’s folding a pair of socks.

“Wanna repeat that, but in English?” 

Tony hesitates, then sits up, tucking his legs underneath himself and reaching for a shirt to fold to occupy his restless hands. “Do you want kids?” 

Ben stops folding the socks. 

“Oh. Oh! I mean—yeah. Yeah, I want kids. Or a kid. At least one. I love kids,” Ben says. His eyes skate over Tony’s face, brow crinkled in confusion, hands reaching for Tony’s in concern. “Do you?”

“I—I don’t know,” Tony lies, “I’ve never really thought about it, you know?” 

But he has. He’s thought of, _dreamed_ of, a little boy with Ben’s eyes and a splash of freckles across his nose, paint on his hands and grease in his hair, a laugh like sunshine and a voice that doesn’t stop chattering. 

Ben’s voice is soft when he speaks, his hands gentle when he squeezes Tony’s wrists. “Okay, angel.” 

Tony nods, pulling his hands away and reaching for another shirt. “It’s just—I don’t know, it’s not really like we can have kids anyway, but adoption is a thing, and I—” 

“You want kids.” 

“I—I’m not sure, handsome.” 

Ben takes the shirt from his hands and pushes the pile of clothes between them out of the way, dragging Tony into his lap. “Okay. Then why are we talking about it?” 

“Because—because—” Tony can’t think of a lie quick enough. 

“Because you want kids,” Ben murmurs, and kisses him gently. “I think that sounds perfect.” 

The image of them with a little boy in their arms won’t leave Tony’s mind. He nods hesitantly, resting his cheek over Ben’s heart. Ben’s hand is in his hair immediately, fingers combing through the strands still matted with grease. His chin rests on the crown of Tony’s head, arm wrapped tight around him. 

“Obviously not for a while, since you have to finish school, and I have to figure out what I’m doing with the company, but—it would be nice.” 

“Yeah, it would be. I want a family with you, angel. I want to _be_ a family with you,” Ben says. 

“I want to be a family with you too,” Tony whispers. 

Ben hums and his chest rumbles under Tony’s ear. He kisses Ben’s chest and feels Ben do the same to the top of his head. 

They stay wrapped around each other until the laundry’s folded, two neat piles on either side of them. 

Ben takes Tony’s hand, pressing gentle kisses to each fingertip. “Wanna watch a movie tonight?” “Ooh, yes, but only if we can have popcorn.” 

“You drive a hard bargain, angel,” Ben teases. 

Tony kisses the smile off his lips. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i really really hope y'all enjoyed!!!!! let me know what you thought in the comments and leave me a kudos if you haven't? they fuel me and i love hearing from y'all!!!
> 
> find me on tunglr


	4. your song

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> listen y'all i am a certified dumbass i was supposed to post this yesterday and i forgot, i really thought me having the chapters mostly pre-written was gonna mean i posted on time but nOPe i'm very sorry i hope the fluffiness of this chapter makes up for it? like it's really fluffy y'all pretty much the fluffiest you're gonna get, a complete contrast to chapters eight and nine which i am writing right now ;) 
> 
> anYWAY i hope you guys enjoy !!!
> 
> (no tws for this chapter i believe but if you see something that needs a tag then please let me know) 
> 
> ((fic playlist is [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2vm1hGpZNndNg54JO4jUrM?si=XIGANf-OSH2WHuYl8EBUww)))

_August 8, 2016._

_Esopus, New York._

Quiet buzzing breaks through the silence of space and endless wormholes and _falling_. 

Tony jerks awake, lungs trying to draw air, hands pressed to his chest, body shaking. The brush of silk against his skin causes a shudder, the continuous buzzing feels louder than the sound of his own gasping breaths. “FRI—” he chokes out. 

Her voice comes into focus; the buzzing fades to the background. 

“—name is Tony Stark. You are forty-six years old. It is 8:37 A.M. Eastern Time and you are in the Avengers Compound in Esopus, New York. It is August 9. The year is 2016. The temperature outside is 76 degrees. The temperature inside is 68 degrees.” 

Tony closes his eyes and imagines the orange triangle in his mind. He breathes in. 

“Thanks, baby girl.” 

“Anytime, boss. Your heart rate is currently 147 beats per minute, would you like me to continue?” 

He shakes his head, already reaching for the still-buzzing phone on his nightstand. “I’ll be fine.” 

“Boss—” 

“Mute.” 

The phone falls from his hands when he sees the caller I.D. His hands tremble as he answers the call from where it lays on his bed, putting it on speaker. 

“Is Peter okay?” 

May doesn’t answer for five seconds too long. “Oh—uh—yes, he’s fine. Peter’s fine.”

“What about—is—”

“Ben’s okay too. Nothing—nothing’s wrong, Dr. Stark.” 

There are lines of confusion running through her words and Tony’s brain isn’t working fast enough to unravel them. 

“Okay,” he says, slowly and as calmly as possible with his heart still racing and panic still tickling the back of his throat. “Why are you calling me?” 

“Oh—well—” He hears a rustle, maybe the clothes she’s wearing or a strand of her hair brushing the mic of her phone, then a clatter, maybe a plate she sets down on the counter or dishes she’s washing with the phone tucked between her ear and her shoulder, then she clears her throat. “Peter’s birthday is in two days.” 

Tony taps his chest with three fingers, playing the melody to _Happy Birthday_ over his heart. “Okay.” 

“You know how I feel about you, Dr. Stark, but you also know how Peter feels about you, and I don’t care what you do as long as it’s something nice, if you can manage that. Just—do something for him. He worships you.” 

“I know,” Tony whispers, picturing Peter’s smile. The melody he’s tapping on his chest changes; it starts to sound a lot like a certain Queen song. _Hear the word that I say._ He forces his hand to still.“I—thank you for the heads up. I’ll do something.” 

He hears May exhale, a sigh of relief and annoyance rolled into one. “Thank you.” 

“I—I didn’t realize his birthday was also in August.” 

_Happy birthday, Benny._

“You know now,” she says curtly. Tony swallows tightly. 

“I know now. Thank you. I’ll, uh—I’ll start looking into gifts.” 

The call disconnects with a quiet beep. 

Tony falls back onto his bed, hand resting on his heart again. “FRIDAY?” She doesn’t respond and he sighs. His A.I. takes after him far too much sometimes. “I’m sorry. You don’t need to give me the silent treatment.” After another seventeen seconds, counted by the beats Tony taps on his heart, he mutters, “Unmute.” 

“Thank you. What can I help you with, boss?” 

“What the hell am I supposed to get the bug for his birthday?” 

_August 22, 1987._

_Boston, Massachusetts._

“Can I look yet?” One of Ben’s hands reaches up to his face, patting the blindfold. “I’m taking your silence as a yes.” 

“No, hey!” 

Ben’s hand falls back to his side. “Fine, fine, I’ll leave it on. It’s kinda comfy, guess I see why you like it.” 

Tony feels his face go bright red. “Benny,” he hisses, “Not the time or place.” 

“Sorry, angel,” Ben hums, a smirk playing on his lips. Tony knows that if the blindfold wasn’t covering his eyes, they’d be dancing, the gold flecks turning to stars. He leans up and kisses Ben’s jaw gently. 

“Sure you are.”

“Course I am, I can’t see you blushing, can I? No point in making you blush if I can’t see it.” The flush on Tony’s cheeks darkens and he swats Ben’s chest. Ben catches his hand blindly, kisses the scars on his knuckles, hums against his fingertips. “That’s not very nice, beautiful.”

“Shut up,” Tony mumbles, the smile in his voice undisguisable. “Lemme check something, then you can look.” 

His fingers stay pressed to Ben’s lips as he looks around the room, taking in each piece of Ben’s present, all set up earlier that day with Richard’s help. The blinds are half-open, letting in streams of sunlight that shine off of the silvers and golds and irons of each tool, that illuminate specks of dust that float in the air, restless from all the movement two hours ago. He looks up at Ben, and his breath catches as the sunlight hits Ben’s face, turning strands of his hair golden and making his tiny patch of freckles glow. 

_I love you_ , he thinks, _I love you with everything I am._

“I’m gonna take it off now,” is what he says. “You ready to see your present?”

“Is my present you?” 

The underlying affection in Ben’s teasing makes Tony’s heart beat a little faster. He kisses Ben’s jaw again, holding back a smile. “Maybe later tonight, if you’re good.” 

Ben’s hand lets go of his to slip into the back pocket of his ripped jeans, thumb hooked into the belt loop. “Hm, but it’s my birthday.” 

“Yeah, yeah, no need to grope me.” Tony looks around the room again, chews his lower lip, hums quietly. “Okay, it’s ready. Yeah.” He turns, smiling when Ben’s hand doesn’t leave his pocket, goes up on his tiptoes to untie the silk around Ben’s eyes, kissing him as the blindfold drops to the floor. 

Ben’s other hand cups his neck, thumb keeping his chin tipped up, and Tony’s fingers tangle in Ben’s hair, arms around his neck balancing him against Ben’s chest. They trade kisses until Tony loses count of the seconds, hungry and deep at first, slow and soft right before Tony pulls back. 

He blinks his eyes open right before Ben does. 

The surprise on Ben’s face feels more rewarding than the kiss did. 

“Happy birthday, Benny,” he says softly.

The room, Ben’s studio, looks completely different from the way it did three hours earlier. The walls, previously beige, shine with fresh coats of white, all for Ben to cover with his own designs. The shelves Tony put up are white too, lining two of the walls and littered with new paint brushes, cans of paint, charcoal pencils, tiny rulers, anything Ben’s mentioned in the past four months of dating. There’s a stack of fresh canvases in one corner and a new easel in the center of the room, already set up with the painting Ben was working on the night before. Tony’s card rests on the small cart next to it, underneath two paint palettes, one fresh and the other covered in flecks of dried paint. 

“Tony— _Tony_. How long did this—I—how much did this cost you?” 

“Doesn’t matter, not when I’m spending it on you.” 

“It—it does matter—”

“It’s your birthday present, handsome.” Tony turns his head to kiss Ben’s bicep softly, looks up to meet Ben’s eyes, tugs him closer to touch the smile on Ben’s lips. “I know you didn’t like your old studio, and Richie mentioned you’d been complaining a bit, so…thought I’d fix it up.” 

“I love you,” Ben says. 

_I love you._ The sentence hangs in the air between them for four seconds, until Tony cuts through the silence, through the shock on Ben’s face. 

“I love you too.” 

“Yeah?” Ben’s voice is as hopeful as Tony’s heart feels. 

“Yeah. Yeah—yeah. I—I love you. A lot. And…you deserve all of this. And more. You— _Benny_.” The words trip out of Tony’s mouth, punctuated by a tiny laugh that holds more uncertainty than it should, a tiny laugh that grows into a full-body one when he sees the look on Ben’s face, a look that he wants to keep with him forever, to look at forever. “I love you.” 

“I love you too.” 

When Ben kisses him, it feels different, and the same, and _perfect._

“Hey, hey,” Tony gasps out when Ben starts trailing kisses down his neck and nips at his pulsepoint gently, when Ben slips his hand under his t-shirt and traces a slow pattern up his spine, when Ben picks him up and guides his legs to wrap around his waist. “This isn’t your whole present, tesoro, there’s more.” 

“Mm, yeah? Sure this isn’t the more you’re talking about?” 

“Pretty sure— _Benjamin_ —” 

“Antonio,” Ben murmurs against his skin. 

“Hng,” Tony gets out, before Ben’s mouth is on his again, dragging the words from his lips and the thought of Ben’s present from his mind. 

Paintbrushes hit the floor when Ben rolls his hips forward and Tony’s hip bangs into the nearest shelf. A can of paint follows soon after. 

“Bedroom?” 

“Yeah—yeah, bedroom _now_.” 

The easel gets knocked over on their way to the door. 

An hour later, when their legs are tangled together under the blankets of Ben’s bed and their skin is sticky with sweat, when their fingers are intertwined on Ben’s stomach and Tony’s head is resting on Ben’s chest, when they’ve murmured _I love you_ over and over into each other’s skin, Tony remembers Ben’s present. 

“Hey,” he says softly, letting go of Ben’s hand to trace the lines of his face, to memorize the crinkles at the corners of his eyes with the pads of his fingertips, to tap each light freckle that dusts his cheeks. “You didn’t let me give you the rest of your present.” 

Ben’s thumb rubs a small circle against his hip. “You’re sure that wasn’t it?” 

“Pretty sure, handsome. I—uh—well, this is kinda presumptuous of me, especially to give as a birthday present, which is why I couldn’t just give you this, but I hope you liked the studio, and—” 

The kiss is enough to shut him up for a few minutes. 

“Wanna try again and tell me what you’re giving me, angel?” 

“Do you want to paint me?” Tony blurts, biting down on his lip the second the words are out. 

Cold rushes over him when Ben just stares at him. 

“Do I—what?” 

“That—that’s why it’s not really a gift, but—I know I told you I wasn’t ready for you to paint me, but I am, because…because I love you.” 

“I love you too,” Ben says immediately, and the cold starts to seep away from the warmth in the words. “And I really wanna paint you, angel, but are you sure?” 

Tony kisses him again. “I’m sure. It—it’s how you love. I don’t know why I wasn’t ready earlier, but I do know that I am now.” 

“You weren’t ready because you weren’t ready to give me your heart.” The words are simple, Ben says them like they’re simple, but they aren’t, not to Tony, and the look that Ben’s giving him when he pulls back tells Tony that Ben knows it too.

“Happy birthday, Benny,” Tony whispers, taking Ben’s hand, placing it over his heart, holding it there. “Happy birthday.” 

_August 10, 2016._

_Queens, New York City, New York._

It’s easier to knock this time, knowing what’s on the other side of the door, knowing that Peter, with his laugh like sunshine, is there. That doesn’t stop Tony from scraping at the smooth paper of the envelope in his hands with his nails, trying to scratch the tremors in his fingers away. He forgot the rubber stress ball, and FRIDAY isn’t there in his ear to coax him through a breathing exercise, so he has to make do with the quiet sound of nail against paper. 

He swallows tightly and knocks. 

Peter opens it, and Tony sees his eyes going wide in surprise, hears his exclamation of “Mr. Stark!” and then feels Peter’s arms around him. Peter’s arms around him. 

Peter’s _hugging_ him. 

As soon as it registers, Tony hugs the kid back. 

“I didn’t—uh, I didn’t realize you were coming,” Peter says awkwardly. Tony catches a glimpse of May in the kitchen, rummaging for something in one of the cabinets, and of Peter’s friend, Ned, on the couch, staring at him with wide eyes. When Peter draws back from the hug, Ned’s eyes go impossibly wider, and Tony can’t resist winking at him before pulling his focus to Peter again. 

“Of course I came, bug, it’s your birthday.” The smile on Peter’s face easily melts away the icy shards of anxiety still piercing his heart. “So, when’s the party happening?” 

The way Peter’s face crumples, for just a split second, before the smile is back on his face, is enough to reform the shards fully.

“Uh—no party. You know—” There’s a glance over his shoulder at Ned, a bounce on the balls of his feet, a rustle of his sweatshirt as his hands twist together. “It’s the summer, people are busy, and you know, parties aren’t really my thing, and I don’t really like big groups or gatherings like that. May’s gonna take me and Ned out for dinner tonight and that’ll be like a party, it’s sort of…tradition, to do it like that, and it’s how we celebrate, and—well, Flash and I are still fighting, or—not fighting, he’s fighting, I’m just…waiting for him to calm down and he'll come around eventually, but he couldn’t come, but it’s not like he’d want to come to dinner, that’s not his thing anyway, so yeah, we’re going to dinner. Me and Ned and May. To celebrate. You know. Sort of. No party. I mean—it used to be—” Peter cuts himself off. “Anyway. No party. But thanks for coming, Mr. Stark.” His eyes drop to the envelop in Tony’s hands, flit across the paper to read the neatly scrawled _Peter_. “And—for whatever’s in that. Thank you.” He clears his throat. “Ned, meet Mr. Stark!” 

Tony just stands there, ice traveling through his body, because he should’ve realized the second he saw the empty apartment, should’ve realized when the only person other than May that Peter ever talks about is the one walking towards him with awe in his eyes, should’ve realized when Peter’s constant texts to him once May had finally relented never mentioned spending time with friends other than Ned.

“Hi—wow, sir, it’s an _honor_ to meet you.” Ned’s shaking his hand before he realizes it.“You—your work in the robotics field is—and the coding—and like, holy shit, you’re Iron Man, and the _suit_ , and the coding in Peter’s—”

“Ned,” Peter hisses.

“Oops. Uh—I didn’t say anything about Peter’s suit, sir. I haven’t looked at Peter’s suit. What suit?” 

Tony looks between the two teenagers, taking in the way Peter’s eyes are tired and how the back of his hand is resting against Ned’s arm, the way Ned is practically vibrating with excitement and how he doesn’t move his arm away from Peter’s hand. He sighs. “So he knows about your midnight endeavors too, I’d take it?”

“Well—it was an accident,” Peter says, just as Ned bursts out, “He didn’t mean to!” 

“Yeah, I’m sure he didn’t. He’s not the best at keeping secrets.”

“I know, I’m surprised it took May as long as it did,” Ned responds, elbowing Peter in the gut with the same arm Peter’s hand is resting against. Peter elbows him back and lets his hand fall to his side, pinky brushing Ned’s, and Tony watches the last bit of tension drain from his shoulders. 

“Jerk.” 

“Nerd.” 

“Dude, you’re no less of a nerd, I bet you got me LEGOs just so you can build them too.”

“Hey, don’t talk about LEGOs in front of Iron Man!” 

Tony raises a brow. “That implies that I’ve never played with LEGOs before, do I act like I’ve never played with LEGOs before?”

“Oh my God, Iron Man plays with LEGOs?” 

“Of course Iron Man plays with LEGOs, they do wonders when a project just isn’t working and I need something to work. Following the rulebooks is no fun, though, you can build so much more when you ignore those.” 

“Thank you, that’s what I keep saying, but Peter _likes_ following the instructions!” 

“It’s calming! It’s not like we can build a Millenium Falcon without the instructions!” 

“You can if you try hard enough,” Tony chimes in, just to watch Peter’s brow furrow in a mock scowl. 

“You are not helping, Mr. Stark.” 

“I never said I was on your side, Mr. Parker.” 

Ned’s shoulders shake with silent laughter and a snort escapes when Peter’s scowl turns on him. 

“I’m not laughing at you!” 

“Sure,” Peter mutters, but it’s clear he’s fighting a smile. 

Tony doesn’t bother fighting his.

“You want your present now or later, bug?” he asks once Ned clears his throat, discreetly wipes the tears from his eyes, and hides another snort behind his hand at the look on Peter’s face. 

The kid’s eyes are on the envelope again. “You really didn’t have to get me anything.” 

“I wanted to,” Tony says honestly. 

He doesn’t have to look over to know that May’s watching him from the kitchen. 

“Peter.” Ned’s voice is soft. Peter glances at him, back to the envelope, up at Tony, then to the envelope. 

“Now is good?” 

Tony ignores the hesitance in Peter’s voice and holds the envelope out, waits for the kid to take it, raises a brow when he fidgets before opening it, grins when he finally tears the paper, and watches with a spark of pride in his chest as Peter’s eyes go wide in shock.

“Holy _shit_ ,” he breathes. “Jesus Christ—Mr. Stark, I can’t accept this, oh my God, I want to so badly, but I can’t accept this, this is—this is—I— _Mr. Stark_ , this is _insane_ , how much did this cost you? No, wait, don’t answer that, please don’t answer that, thank you so much but I can’t take this—”

“Yes, you can—” 

“Mr. Stark, I _can’t_ , this is—this is just—this is _amazing_ and thank you so much but—”

“Give me that.” Ned snatches the envelope from Peter’s hands and then promptly drops it. “Holy fuck.” 

“Right?!” 

“I really can’t accept this, Mr. Stark, but thank you, truly.” Peter meets his eyes as he says it, voice earnest. 

“Peter,” Tony says quietly, “You can, and you will. I want you to. It’s your _birthday_ , bug, it’s a gift. Okay?”

“This—” Peter stoops suddenly, picking up the envelope and the tickets inside only to wave them above his head. “This isn’t a gift, it’s—it’s—” 

“It’s the experience of a _lifetime_ ,” Ned whispers. 

The envelope slices through the air as Peter points it at Ned. “Exactly!” 

“Exactly. Which is why you deserve it.” 

“I deserve red carpet tickets to the world-wide premiere of Rogue One?” 

“Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” Ned corrects absently, taking the tickets from Peter’s hand and letting the envelope drop to the floor. “Oh, Pete, there’s five.” 

The room goes quiet. 

“You got five?” Peter asks weakly. 

The weight of May’s eyes is heavy on Tony as he nods slowly. “You know, I thought I’d take you with the private jet, we’d bring Ned, of course, can’t forget him, and May, and—”

_And Ben._

Peter’s arms are around him again, and he feels hair tickling his neck as Peter buries his face in its crook, he hears a quiet sniffle as Peter’s shoulders start to shake, he sees May and Ned looking at him with _something_ burning in their eyes. And he hugs Peter back. 

One hand finds its way into the kid’s hair, carding through the loose curls gently, the other rests on Peter’s back, rubbing small circles through his t-shirt. 

Words don’t come, when he opens his mouth to say something, to break the silence that’s already been broken by Peter’s wet hiccups. He hugs Peter tighter.

“Thanks,” comes the quiet mumble; Tony doesn’t know how many minutes later, too busy tapping a piano melody on Peter’s back to count the seconds. 

He waits until Peter’s pulled back, rubbed the tear tracks from his face, and taken a shaky breath before he responds softly, “No problem, bug.” 

The corner of Peter’s mouth turns up. “Arachnid.”

“Bug.” 

“Fair enough.” 

Tony grins. Peter’s tiny smile grows a little wider. 

Then Ned’s at Peter’s side, the tickets in his hand forgotten in favor of taking Peter’s elbow and tugging him towards the hallway, presumably to Peter’s room, with an exclamation about LEGOs and Star Wars and another wide-eyed look at Tony. 

“You know,” May says, “When I told you to get him a present, I didn’t mean—well, I didn’t mean that.” 

The envelope rests on the floor next to her socked feet—pink with blue stripes, this time—and Tony stares at it, before shrugging and looking up to meet her eyes. “It was the first thing I thought of.” 

It wasn’t, but it was the best thing, better than sweatshirts and LEGO sets and a trip to Disney World. 

“He would’ve been happy with LEGOs.” With the way she says it, it feels like a test. 

“I know. I didn’t want to get him something like that. I wanted to get him something that—that he’d remember.”

The words feel stiff as he says them; he had just wanted to get something that would make Peter happy, and she’s right, LEGOs would’ve done that, but they didn’t feel like _enough_. 

There’s a pause as May’s eyes drift to something past Tony’s head. He knows there’s a picture on the wall there, but he doesn’t need to turn to know who’s in it. 

“Thank you, Dr. Stark.” 

That feels like a test too. 

“Don’t thank me, Mrs. Parker.” 

She nods. “Okay.” 

_August 23, 1987._

_Boston, Massachusetts._

There’s a crick in Tony’s neck. He rolls his head forward, waiting for the joints to pop, rubs at the tendon with two fingers when they don’t, listening for the cracking noise. Then he freezes. “Sorry—” 

“I already told you that you could move, angel,” Ben says from behind him. Tony hears the easel rattle, a paintbrush being set down, Ben’s clothes rustling, and then feels the press of lips against his neck, a calloused thumb rubbing at the sore spot, wet paint coming off against his skin. “I’m not a still-life artist. I like movement.” 

Tony tilts his head back into Ben’s hand. “Mm, that’s better, thank you.” 

“Of course, love.” 

The joy in Ben’s voice is as bright as the flush that makes its way up Tony’s cheeks. 

“I love you,” he says, just to say it, just to know that Ben’s smiling because of it. 

“Love you too.” 

Ben’s hand drops away from Tony’s neck, the noise of brushstrokes against the canvas reaching his ears seconds later. He chews on his bottom lip and lets his eyes close, listening to Ben’s off-key humming, picking apart the notes in his mind. 

_It’s a little bit funny, this feeling inside; I’m not one of those who can easily hide. I don’t have much money, but boy, if I did, I’d buy a big house where we both could live._

Tears spring to his eyes unbidden, and he opens them, blinking the feeling away, dropping his gaze back to the blueprint on his lap, picking his pencil up again. 

_If I was a sculptor, but then again, no. Or a man, who makes potions in a traveling show._

The melody curves through the air; Tony’s fingers play the tune on his thigh, tapping it out like he would if there was a piano under his hand as he crosses out one of the formulas someone else wrote at the corner of the design.

_Oh, I know it’s not much but it’s the best I can do. My gift is my song and this one’s for you._

They work together in the quiet, pencil scratching and paintbrush sweeping and Ben humming. Tony looks over his shoulder to watch him, taking in the concentration that bleeds through in the furrow of his brow, the curve of his lip, the squint of his eyes, the tilt of his head. Ben catches him looking and winks at him, neck reddening when Tony blows a kiss in response. 

“Love you,” he mouths, not wanting to break the gentle quiet surrounding them. 

Ben smiles back. 

_And you can tell everybody that this is your song. And maybe it’s quite simple, but now that it’s done, I hope you don’t mind, I hope you don’t mind, that I put down in words, how wonderful life is while you’re in the world._

Tony returns his focus to the blueprint, rewriting another equation underneath the original, and he starts singing before he realizes. 

“I sat on the roof and kicked off the moss. Well, a few of the verses, well, they've got me quite cross, but the sun's been quite kind while I wrote this song, it's for people like you that keep it turned on.” 

Ben’s humming dies but Tony doesn’t stop, voice growing stronger and pencil laying forgotten on the table as he taps the melody out with both hands against his jeans. “So excuse me forgetting, but these things I do—” He looks at Ben again, love welling up in his chest and tears building in his eyes. “You see, I’ve forgotten if they’re green, or they’re blue. Anyway, the thing is, what I really mean: yours are the sweetest eyes I’ve ever seen,” he ends in a whisper. 

“Angel,” Ben breathes. 

Tony wipes his eyes quickly and reaches for Ben’s hand, ignoring the paintbrush that streaks wet paint across his cheek and pressing a kiss to the knuckle of his ring finger. “Is it done yet?” 

“Almost…I didn’t know you could sing like that.” 

“Mm, can play the piano too. My mamma taught me.” 

Ben nods slowly; Tony kisses his knuckle again. “C’mon, handsome,” he says softly, smiling when Ben takes his hand back and returns it to the canvas. 

Tony counts the seconds it takes for Ben to finish, closes his eyes when Ben tells him that it’s done, and bursts into tears when he sees the final painting. 

There are flowers in his hair, galaxies in his eyes, colors in his skin. A rainbow streaks across the canvas and swirls around his head in a beautiful halo, merging with numbers and equations that he recognizes from his own work. 

_This is how you see me?_ he wants to ask, wants to beg, but instead he just looks, through eyes full of tears, at Ben’s creation, Ben’s way of showing his love. 

And once he’s climbed into Ben’s lap and kissed him breathless, Ben murmurs, “I hope you don’t mind that I put down in words, how wonderful life is while you’re in the world.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> !! i really hope you guys enjoyed, the last flashback scene was one of my favorites to write just because i. am weak for that song. it has Meaning to me and also ben and tony are very soft okay that's all leave me a comment if you liked blease even if it's just a heart i'll die 
> 
> find me on tumblr @angxlsgrxce 
> 
> i tried to imbed but it didn't work it ate my text :(


	5. i wanna get better

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GUESS WHO'S STILL A CERTIFIED DUMBASS?? ME
> 
> anyway i hope. you guys like this, there are two very soft flashback scenes and also!! two reasonably fluffy present scenes!! this chapter is one of the biggest like. steps in tony's healing so that's the reasoning for the title, i hope y'all enjoy!!!
> 
> (fic playlist is [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2vm1hGpZNndNg54JO4jUrM?si=XIGANf-OSH2WHuYl8EBUww))
> 
> ((no tws for this chapter but if you see something that needs a tag, like always let me know!!))

_September 5, 2016._

_Esopus, New York._

Orange words blur in Tony’s vision, the letters that make them up fading in and out of focus. He rubs a hand over his face, blinks his eyes open and shut, scratches his nose with the back of his hand, and exhales slowly. The hologram of the Sokovia Accords refocuses in front of his eyes, the words growing slightly larger and the page count hovering in the upper-left corner increasing to 568 from the change. 

He groans.

Swiping up with two fingers, he pulls a clause out of the document and throws it over his shoulder, glancing back in time to see it shrink and align itself with the others he’s already scrapped. 

“Color?” FRIDAY asks. 

“Red, and priority seven.” 

The words change their color instantly and acquire a number at the corner, shifting their placement in the line-up. The vibrant red sears itself into his vision and he winces, rattling off a hex code and relaxing when the red softens its hue.

Tony turns back to the document, scanning over the sentences, brain picking out keywords as he goes and fingers tapping the ones that set off alarm bells that flash the same color as the red still burning in his eyesight. 

_The use of technology…strictly regulated…highly advanced technology_ , he reads, and then, _the creation of self-aware artificial intelligence is completely prohibited._

His chest tightens. 

He pulls out the sub-clause and rotates it in the air with a twist of his wrist, reads it again even though he knows what it says and glances at the nearest camera. At FRIDAY. 

“Boss?”

“Flag it yellow,” he says quietly. “And…priority twelve.” 

The orange shifts to a light yellow and the words snap out of his view. 

He taps the main clause and highlights three words with his pinky, typing out a note on Wakandan technology and making a mental one to talk to King T’Challa before the next U.N. meeting. 

It continues like that, the page count increasing once more when he tells FRIDAY to up the font size again, the color-coding system changing slightly when he has to add another color, the clock in his peripheral vision counting the seconds, minutes, hours.

When it hits 06:03, he taps the workbench next to him to make sure his phone is still there, notifications through FRIDAY muted and texts on Do Not Disturb. Texts from everyone but Peter.

Since August 29th, when Peter had gone back to school, Tony’s come to expect texts from the kid on a daily basis, that range from _gm, mr stark!_ to _theoretically, if i were to connect extension cords to extension cords, how long could the extension cord cord be until it wouldn’t work?_ The follow-up text had been something along the lines of _nvm we don’t have enough extension cords and may said i’m not allowed to :(._

When it became apparent that the first _good morning :D_ text—that Peter had sent at 06:21, waking Tony from a nightmare filled with bunker walls and bloody shields—was not an outlier and instead a routine, Tony makes sure that he’s always up to respond, because the texts have become another form of insight into Peter’s complicated teenage mind. The kid only uses lowercase letters— _capital letters should only be for Emphasis, mr stark_ —and emoticons rather than emojis, a fact Tony had discovered when he’d used an emoji with Peter and his only response had been _no >:(_. Abbreviations only show up when Peter’s energy level is low, and smiley-faces with parentheses instead of the letter D are always coupled with fairly troubling texts when Peter’s ranting about something. Peter uses punctuation sparingly and after the time Tony ended a sentence with a period and Peter didn’t text him for two days because he thought Tony was mad at him, Tony’s taken to dropping punctuation as well. 

Sometimes Peter texts him on patrol, and after the first _aw fuck i can’t believe you’ve done this_ text, followed up with _someone just stabbed me :)_ , Tony makes sure to enforce the policy of patrol check-ins and occasionally reboot the Baby Monitor Protocol that he’d installed in Peter’s suit after he discovered that someone, most likely Ned, had hacked it out. 

Tony’s grown used to the constant communication from the kid, something that he hasn’t had, even with Harley, who calls him every once in a while but never texts, save from the occasional pictures of his workshop and little sister, and links to seven second YouTube videos that he calls _vines_. When one of those links came from Peter, the realization that he hasn’t responded to any of Harley’s pictures in months hit like a shield to the chest, and biweekly calls to Harley, and occasionally Abbie, made it onto his schedule. Harley's texts haven't increased in their number, at least not yet, but comparing the texts he gets from Peter to the calls he has with Harley gets him the same result: the kids make him happy. 

The buzz of his phone at his side pulls him out of his thoughts, and the gold notification from _**bug**_ has a smile making its way onto his face. 

_may woke me up early >:(_

Tony snorts. 

_She doesn’t know you got home at 01:00_

_ew_ is Peter’s only response for a few minutes, and Tony knows it’s a reaction to the military time. 

Then his phone buzzes again and _!! nvm she made me biscuits_

_fingers crossed that they dont kill me_

_Good luck, bug_

_thanks :D_

_:-P_

_not the nose mr. stark-_

Tony sighs, albeit fondly, and types _:P better?_

_much_

_The nose makes it friendly_

_noses are not friendly_

_i’m disappointed_

_You confuse me_

_i know_

_ok gtg mays going to work now_

_Don’t swing to school, take the train_

Peter’s typing bubble appears, then disappears. 

_Peter._

_ack fine bye mr stark see you later !_

_Be safe_ , Tony sends, then sets his phone back down and stands up to pace the length of the workbench, before coming back to pull the Accords towards himself, starting to scroll through again, this time on his feet. 

The clock tells him it’s 08:15 on the dot when his phone buzzes again with another text from Peter: _safe and at school_

_Thanks bug, study hard_

_:/ i’ll do my best_

Tony sends back an emoticon, with a nose, just to spite the kid, not expecting a response until lunch because Peter’s first class is chemistry. He drags his focus back to the Accords and then freezes.

_Any enhanced individuals who agree to sign must register with the United Nations and provide biometric data such as fingerprints and DNA samples. Those with secret identities must reveal their legal names and true identities to the United Nations._

_Those with secret identities must reveal their legal names and true identities to the United Nations._

_Those with secret identities._

Peter.

That clause wasn’t there when he signed. 

“FRIDAY, which copy of the Accords is this?” he asks slowly. 

“The most recent copy, updated September 1st.” 

“And so far, who are the only heroes on the scene whose identities aren’t known to the public?” 

“The hero known as Daredevil, who operates in Hell’s Kitchen, and Spider-Man.” 

Tony feels his jaw, his hands, his lungs, clench in fear, in worry, in _anger_. 

“Red,” he snaps, “Priority _zero_.” 

The whole clause disappears from his view but the words flash in his mind’s eye. 

“Who added it?” 

“General Thaddeus Ross.” 

His nails dig into his palms. 

“Boss—” 

“Make sure he’s present at the next U.N. meeting, baby girl.” 

“Already on it,” she says. 

With the motion of his hand, a copy of the clause appears in front of him; he pulls out words and flicks them away towards the recycling bin hovering above his head, he adds notes on _superhero protection_ and _identity blackmail_ while avoiding mentions of underage heroes at all cost, he types furiously and mutters under his breath until FRIDAY pulls up a breathing exercise for him unprompted. 

At least two hours later, marked by the two buzzes from texts that Tony knows are because Peter’s bored in his second period English class and sending him memes, he sits back and looks at the new version of what he’s mentally dubbed The Masked Hero Clause. 

“Better?” 

“Much better, boss,” FRIDAY answers. 

He exhales slowly, rubs his face, inhales quietly, and reaches for his phone. 

_why does english suck so hard_

_wait_

_You realized that sounded bad and decided to stop texting me, huh?_

_no >:( _comes the response and Tony doesn’t bother biting back the laugh that it elicits. 

_i got caught on my phone and mrs brunner said that since i got an 86 on my last essay i should pay more attention_

_She sounds fun_

_:/ its whatever_

Tony frowns and types, _You sure?_

_yea we dont have another essay for a while and i’ll get betty’s help_

_Okay bug_

_:P_

His breathing is back to normal before he realizes, the tiny triangle that FRIDAY’s kept up disappearing. He looks back at his phone, Peter’s tiny icon beaming up at him, and smiles. 

_January 14, 1988._

_Boston, Massachusetts._

The wind whistles in the almost-empty street, rattling the nearby stop sign and whisking leaves past Tony’s feet. His hat—a red knitted cap courtesy of Richie, who would kill him if he lost it—almost flies off his head and he jams it down further on his head, past his ears, before it can, shoving his hands back into his pockets once it’s secure. 

“Whose brilliant idea was it to move in the dead of winter?” he mumbles, not meaning to be heard by Ben, who’s unloading the truck as Tony stands on the sidewalk, because it was his brilliant idea.

Unfortunately, Ben does hear him, but fortunately, he’s used to Tony’s whining by now, so he just raises a brow. 

“Yeah, yeah, shut up, handsome, I know.” 

Ben shakes his head, holds out another box for Tony to take, and sighs when Tony pouts at him. “I told you to wear gloves.” 

“And I told you I’d suck you off in every room of our new apartment if you’d do all the box-lifting and furniture-moving.” 

Ben’s face, already red from the wind, grows redder. “Pretty sure you’ll do that anyway, angel.” Tony doesn’t say anything, burying his hands further in his coat—stolen from Rhodey and two sizes too large—but it’s response enough for Ben. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. If you’re not gonna help unload, take them upstairs at least?” 

“Mm, okay.” 

Ben waits until his hands are out of his pockets to toss him the keys, a box tucked under one arm and a quilted blanket slung over his neck. He leans down so Tony can kiss him, a quick but heated press of their lips, then straightens back up, nodding his head towards a box at Tony’s feet labeled _kitchen_ in his loose cursive. 

“Take that one up first, it’s all that stuff Mrs. Jarvis gave you,” he says.

The keys hanging off his pinky, Tony bends over to pick the box up, hitches it up in his arms, heads towards the door, winks at Ben as he unlocks it, and slips inside to the warmth of the stairwell. Their apartment is above a local candle shop, one that they agreed on together because of its proximity to both M.I.T. and UMass, and the view outside one window for Ben to paint, and the garage below with space for Tony’s bots. 

Pumpkin and peppermint and lavender scents mingle in the air around him. Tony wrinkles his nose and hugs the box closer to his chest, taking the stairs two at a time. A red door greets him, scuff marks shaped like sneakers on the bottom and scratches from the grooves of keys around the lock. He looks up at the top of the doorframe, automatically calculating the height (6’8.3) and whether or not Ben will have to duck to get in (no), settles the box on his hip, flipping the keys with a flick of his wrist and unlocking the door. 

The apartment’s warmer than the stairwell, an open vent near the door blowing hot air onto Tony’s feet and bringing with it overlapping scents of different candles; he smells pumpkin and peppermint again, but the cinnamon and rose and vanilla are new, and overwhelming. Pushing the thoughts of a new ventilation system to the back of his mind and setting the box down on the floorboards—maple, or maybe oak—in front of him, he walks to the center of the room and takes in the place he’s only seen in pictures from news clippings. 

Winter sunlight filters in through the blinds covering the windows that face the street, hitting the floor in diagonal lines and illuminating floating specks of dust in the air. The room he’s standing in isn’t small, for a living room, but it’s not the sprawling empty space that made up the sitting rooms of his childhood. The walls are beige, something Ben mentioned with disdain, and Tony can imagine the light blue that they’ll repaint with, can imagine the paintings they’ll hang on the wall facing him, can imagine his Ph.D diploma in between the two windows on his right and Ben’s Master’s joining it in two years, can imagine pictures of Rhodey and Richie and Mary and Ana and Jarvis and Peggy, their family, dotting the walls. 

Tony turns around to face the kitchen and the nook on the side that Ben talked about tucking a table into, assessing the size and calculating how small the table will need to be, but he can picture it with ease; a round table, maybe oak, with four or five chairs around it, some yellow tulips in a jar at the center, or a bowl of fruit. Looking at the kitchen, memories that haven’t been made yet swirl into his mind like the wind outside had blown them in, of cooking with Ben and of watching him bake, of dancing with only the light of the fridge to guide them and of getting soap in Ben’s hair while washing the dishes. 

The box lies forgotten on the floor as Tony moves down the small hallway that leads to the two bedrooms, one for them to share and the other to convert into Ben’s new studio, beige walls ready to be covered in colors of their choosing lining his path. He pokes his head into the small bathroom off the hallway, makes a face at himself in the mirror, then pauses, tilts his head to the side, and looks at the person reflected back at him. 

His cheeks and nose are still as red as his cap from the bite of the wind and the hair that he can see is unruly and tangled, but his eyes are alight and the look on his face is something he can only describe as _happiness._

_Ben makes me happy_ , Tony thinks, and then, _I want to spend the rest of my life with him_ , and then, _I_ will _spend the rest of my life with him. This is the first step._

He winks at his reflection and steps out of the bathroom. 

A quick glance between the two half-open doors in front of him tells him which is the master; he nudges the door open a little wider with his foot, then turns away to go into Ben’s studio. The room is bright, no blinds on the windows and white walls instead of beige, and Tony walks in a circle around it, knocking on the walls to make sure there are studs where Ben will want to hang shelves and glancing out the windows onto the street to judge the view. 

The road is lined with shops, which means that when Ben wants to people-watch, or people-paint, he’ll have options, and that when Tony needs a coffee fix, he’ll have at least three local cafés to choose from. 

A horn honks as it turns the corner, a bird chirps from the telephone pole across the street, a door bangs shut, and Tony taps on the windowsill, knocks his way across the last wall in the room, huffs in satisfaction once he’s finished. 

He stands in the doorway, looking across the hall to the master bedroom. Through the open doorway, he can see a window, a closet door, a sconce on the wall. When he closes his eyes, he can see lazy mornings of waking up in Ben’s arms and gentle kisses across his shoulder as hair tickles the back of his neck, late nights of Ben’s skin pressed against his and murmurs of praise mingling with cries of pleasure, early afternoons of stumbling to bed after hours in the workshop and soft touches once Ben finally joins him, days and nights and tomorrows and _forevers_ filling his mind. 

When he looks out the window, he sees Ben, still unloading the truck, but he looks up like he can sense Tony, a grin spreading across his face. 

Love wells up in Tony’s heart, thoughts of questions not ready to be voiced fill his mind, and the overwhelming feeling of safety settles over him. 

He opens the window. 

“Hey, handsome!” 

“That doesn’t look like taking the boxes upstairs,” Ben teases, and there’s no hint of anger in his voice. 

“What can I say, I got distracted, I was looking around.” 

“You like it?” 

Tony smiles. “I think it’s perfect.” 

_September 11, 2016._

_Manhattan, New York City, New York._

The click of Pepper’s heels against the stone of the floor and the rustle of Tony’s suit as he fidgets with his cufflinks are the only sounds in the room, empty save for them and the industrial-style boxes stacked neatly in a row against the floor to ceiling windows. Tony turns, breaking the side-by-side and step-by-step formation of their movement, to run his hand along one of the boxes. He traces the taped-on package label and the _Stark Industries_ logo stamped on the side, leans against it, the grooves of the hard plastic digging into his shoulder as he looks out at the bustling city, the people as tiny as Hank Pym’s ants from his bird’s eye view. 

“You’re sure?” Pepper asks, for the second time in the past seven minutes. 

Tony exhales slowly, counting the people as they scramble around on the sidewalk and weave through the cars and cross the streets with purpose. 

“Yeah. This—this is the right thing to do, you know? Keeping it is pointless for the company, it’s not Stark Tower anymore, and…well, it’s not Avengers Tower either. Hasn’t been Avengers Tower for a while.” He closes his eyes, ignores the sting of tears, says quietly, “And the Avengers don’t exist anymore.” 

The words hang in the air. 

“The Avengers don’t exist anymore,” he repeats, and this time it’s easier, something loosening his chest, in his heart, as he lets go of the team. The team he let into his life, the team who saw him at his weakest, the team who he gave everything to, the team who he protected, the team who he thought of as family _._

_We all need family. The Avengers are yours, maybe more so than mine._

He opens his eyes. 

It’s easy to let go of the team who used him, despite all of that. 

“Okay,” Pepper says gently, a gentleness that very few people in his life have treated him with. 

Not his parents, not Obie, not the press or his peers or the world. And not the Avengers, who, he realizes now, faked their gentleness with him. Maybe not Bruce, who understood, and maybe not Thor, who could never understand, and maybe not Steve, not at first. 

But Bruce and Thor left, and Steve changed his colors. 

Or maybe Tony was just colorblind from the start.

He’s not colorblind anymore. 

“I don’t need them,” he continues, “And neither does the world. Or at least, it’s not them the world needs as heroes. The world needs an organized, cohesive team made up of a leader appointed by the U.N. and a vetted selection of heroes that know how to follow orders and have people’s best interests at heart. That will accept responsibility for their actions and pay the consequences.” 

“You’re right. About all of it, Tony. You don’t need them.” 

_We need you, Cap._

The grooves of the container dig into his back as Tony turns to look at her. “I need you, though, Pep, fact is I’d be dead without you.” His tone is light; the words are heavy. 

Pepper sighs quietly, just looking at him for a minute, before walking forward, taking him into her arms, pressing a kiss to his temple, and holding him close. “No, Tony—you just wouldn’t be living. You need people who love you for you. Not people who only see your money.”

Her hair smells like vanilla bean and lavender. He tucks his face into the crook of her neck and wraps his arms around her waist, the silk of her shirt slipping against the sleeves of his suit. 

“I’m really lucky to have you, huh?” he mumbles. 

She laughs warmly. “Yeah, and don’t forget that. But I’m lucky to have you too.” _You’re all I have too, you know._ “And you’re lucky to have that kid, Tony. I don’t know what he’s doing that Jim and Happy and I could never do, but God knows I’m grateful for him.”

Thoughts of Peter’s smile and texts and patrol check-ins fill his mind. 

“I’m grateful for him too,” Tony says softly. 

Pepper’s fingers, long and nimble, card through his hair, nails scratching gently at his scalp. “He’s good for you.” 

_The Parkers are like that_ , Tony thinks, but doesn’t voice. 

“Not good for my sleep schedule, he’s up and texting me at 06:15.” 

“Then maybe, just maybe, and hear me out here, Tony, because I know it might be outlandish, you should start going to bed earlier.” 

“I’m still working on the Accords situation,” he huffs. “I’ll work on fixing my sleep once that’s sorted out.” 

Her hand stills in his hair for a second. “Did the last meeting go well?”

“Well…” He lets out a slow sigh, her hair tickling his nose at the disturbance. “They’re considering my clause. But Ross is heavily against it, and it’s hard to stay neutral when there’s an immature man in a position of power yelling at you about something that you have personal stake in.” 

Pepper’s eyeroll is audible. 

“I think they’ll pass it. They have to,” he says. 

They have to, because Peter’s life is at stake. 

“He’ll be okay,” Pepper murmurs. “He’s got you looking out for him.” 

_He’s looking out for me too_ , Tony thinks, suddenly reminded of the last conversation he and Peter had. 

“You know—Pep—I think I should move out of the Compound. Keep it, not sell it like the Tower, or give it to the U.N. to be repurposed for the New Avengers, if that’s gonna be a thing, but…it’s too big for just me.” 

There’s a tug at his hair and he pulls back to meet her eyes at the silent command. She’s staring at him with something unreadable in her eyes, and as soon as she speaks, he realizes it’s pride. “We can start looking for apartments in the Upper East Side tomorrow.”

“Yeah. Yeah, that sounds good, Pep.” He hesitates. “Let’s look at Queens, too.” 

_February 21, 1989._

_Boston, Massachusetts._

The eggs sizzle as soon as they hit the cast-iron pan, joining the three strips of bacon that had already been frying, and Tony frowns, nudging the bacon closer to the edge with his spatula. An AC/DC song playing from the radio on the shelf above his head fades out and is replaced by another one that Tony can’t place, but it’s enough background noise to let him focus on the breakfast he’s cooking for Ben. 

The bread pops up in the toaster and he slides over on socked feet to look at it—not brown enough on one side—before rotating the dial and pushing it down again. He hums quietly, picking up the beat of the song and tapping it out on the counter. Ben’s coughing, loud and dry, cuts through the melody, and Tony winces. 

“I’m making tea, too!” he calls before Ben can strain his voice by asking. 

“Thank you,” comes the weak response, and Tony smiles softly, pushing off the counter and sliding back towards the stove to turn the burner under the tea kettle on. The scent of cooked bacon fills the air and he plucks the strips from the pan deftly, hissing between his teeth at the heat and dropping them quickly on the ceramic plate—white, with little flowers dotting the edge—that waits next to the stove. 

The cabinet above his head squeaks when he opens it and he makes a mental note to tighten the screws in the hinge as he reaches for the box of peppermint tea bags, going on his tiptoes to knock it off the shelf and bouncing back to the balls of his feet to catch it before it lands in the eggs. 

Tony glances at the eggs and wrinkles his nose, then hums and uses the spatula to break the yolks, because Ben will complain if he doesn’t. The toaster pops again behind him and he slides over to get the toast, pinching it between two fingers and narrowly avoiding burning his hand on the metal grating. The kettle starts whistling as soon as the toast is buttered and on the plate, and he has to go on his toes again to grab Ben’s favorite mug—a gag joke from Richie with _not paint water_ on the side—from the cabinet. Another glance at the eggs tells him that they’re done, and he turns off both burners, flips the eggs onto Ben’s plate, pours the heated water into Ben’s mug, avoids burning himself, and adds the tea bag. 

Finding the tray to carry it all is the hardest part, and after the song on the radio changes for the third time and Ben’s coughing increases in frequency, Tony resorts to washing the cutting board in the sink. 

With Ben’s breakfast on his makeshift tray, Tony makes his way—as carefully as possible—to the bedroom, nudges the door open with his foot, smiles softly when he sees Ben. 

“Hey, sickie,” he hums. 

The lump shaped like Ben under the covers lets out a grunt. “Don’t be mean to me, ‘m sick.” 

“Oh, I’m well aware. Now budge over a bit, I’ve got your breakfast.” Ben rolls over, onto his back, presumably, only his hair poking out at the top of the bed. Tony sets the cutting board on the nightstand at his side of the bed, knocking a stack of thesis papers off, and sits on the edge of the bed, tugging the blankets down to see his boyfriend’s face. 

“Hi,” Ben mumbles, opening one bleary eye to look at him. 

“You’re grumpy when you’re sick,” Tony comments idly. Ben grunts at him again. “Grump.” Pulling on the covers again, Tony manages to get underneath them, letting Ben curl into his side. “You hungry, or do you just want your tea?” 

“I have to sit up for either of ‘em, don’t I?” 

Tony starts carding his hand through Ben’s sweaty hair. “Unfortunately.” 

“Poop,” Ben says, and Tony blinks, and then they’re both laughing. Another cough wracks Ben’s body, and Tony rubs his back, humming sympathetically. 

“I’m sorry, handsome.” 

“Eh, ‘s okay. You made me tea, I love you.” 

“Love you too,” Tony says softly, and kisses Ben’s nose. 

“Okay, okay, help me up now.”

Two minutes and thirteen seconds later, Ben’s sitting up against the headboard with his mug in his hands, his glasses on his face, his tray in his lap, and Tony tucked under his arm. 

“You cooked the yolks,” Ben mumbles. Tony runs the pads of his fingers over Ben’s bare chest, tracing swirling patterns and connecting the dots of his freckles and moles. 

“Course I did, you think runny yolks are gross, and I don’t need to give you another reason to whine today.” 

“Hmph.” 

“Whiny baby,” Tony murmurs, turning his head to kiss Ben’s bicep. 

“I’d make a sex joke but I don’t have the energy to think of one.” 

Tony snorts. “Perv.” 

The slurping sound of Ben drinking his tea is the only response he gets and he huffs, reaches for a strip of bacon, breaks off a piece, pops it into his mouth, beams up at Ben. 

“I thought you were gonna feed me,” Ben says petulantly, and then, “Thank you, you’re a good boyfriend,” when Tony rolls his eyes and breaks off the next piece to hold up to Ben’s mouth.

They finish off the bacon and eggs like that, trading kisses over it until Ben coughs into Tony’s mouth. 

“You’re lucky I love you,” Tony mutters, unable to disguise the fondness in his voice, and Ben just takes a bite of toast, humming when it crunches. 

“Yeah, I am lucky, huh?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lemme know what you thought in the comments!! they fuel me and make me happ :D
> 
> (yes ben does have glasses he's had glasses this whole time im just DUMB and forgot about it so uhh he's been wearing contacts in the other scenes) 
> 
> find me on tumblr @angxlsgrxce (not gonna do the imbed because it eats it every. single. time.)


	6. sink in

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi this is kinda late but at least its not thursday yet yk so good for me plus this is a very long chapter (almost 8k whooops i am sorry) because it has five scenes instead of four and yes they are all very relevant, y'all get tony and may bonding, a surprise guest, and some snoft flashbacks so enjoy!!
> 
> (tws for this chapter: none that i can think of, maybe mentions of drowning? ((the scene where peter gets dropped in the water in hoco is in this chapter)))
> 
> (fic playlist is [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2vm1hGpZNndNg54JO4jUrM?si=XIGANf-OSH2WHuYl8EBUww))

_September 13, 2016._

_Queens, New York City, New York._

People barely spare a glance at Tony as he makes his way down the sidewalk, in a baseball cap and aviators and an AC/DC shirt and torn jeans and one of Rhodey’s Air Force windbreakers, too wrapped up in their own lives to notice the billionaire in their midst, and he’s never been more grateful for fast-walking businessmen with iPhones and StarkPhones and Androids pressed to their ears, for NYU students with bags under their eyes and textbooks in their arms, for parents with babies in strollers or toddlers on their hips. Tony loves the city, the way it moves around him, the way he moves through it, has to move through it, or risk getting yelled at by angry New Yorkers. 

Overlapping conversations reach his ears, the confusion of tourists and the annoyance of city-slickers and the babble of children, and he lets it wash over him, relishing in the feeling of being on the ground, in the center of it, no longer looking on the city from above. 

Once he and Pepper find an apartment, he’ll get to be on the ground every day.

He smiles softly. 

A quick glance at his watch—digital, just for the purpose of having military time to get on Rhodey’s nerves—tells him he needs to be meeting May in ten minutes, and another glance up to the street ahead of him tells him he’ll be there in two, when he spots the café’s sign ahead. 

The door jingles when he walks in, a tinkling sound that reminds him of Peter’s laugh. He takes a quick scan of the customers—a college student at one table, with her books spread out and her hair falling from her bun into her eyes; an old man at another, a newspaper in his hands; a couple tucked into the pair of chairs at the window; and May, at the table they sat at last time, a mug of something steaming in her hands and a half-eaten muffin in front of her.

May, who’s already there. May, who arrived before him. 

Tony blinks. 

“Am I late?” 

“No, I’m early,” she says, and it feels like an olive branch. 

He nods, turns away, orders (hot chocolate, or else Rhodey will give him hell, and a ham and cheese croissant, or else FRIDAY will lock his lab), ignores her eyes on his back. 

Once he’s sitting, not across from May, because that would put his back to the door, but next to her, facing the door, picking at pieces of the croissant, and she’s picking him apart with her dark eyes, she hums. 

“Why didn’t you sit there last time?” 

That’s not an olive branch, it’s a test, but maybe it’s both. Every question with her feels loaded, like he’s walking on a minefield, but some are duds. 

“Because Peter needed it,” Tony says simply, because it’s the truth. 

“Thank you, Dr. Stark.” 

“That’s the second time you’ve thanked me, Mrs. Parker, I hope it’s not becoming a habit,” is the easy response, the quip, but she just narrows her eyes at him. “It’s no problem,” he adds. 

That earns him the barest hint of a smile. 

“You care about him, and that means something.” _He’s got you looking out for him._ “He needs people who care about him. Who love him. He doesn’t have that many of those left.” 

_Who love him._

“Oh,” Tony says softly. 

May’s eyes are calculating, piercing, hard. “I don’t think that’s a hard concept for you to understand.” 

“No, you’re right. It’s not.” _You need people who love you for you._ “I’m glad he’s in my life, Mrs. Parker, but you didn’t ask me here to talk about how I feel about him, did you?” 

His fingers are drumming on the table unconsciously, tapping out the beat of a song he doesn’t want to put a name to, saying the things he can’t voice. The hot chocolate is sweet on the tip of his tongue, the whipped cream a cool contrast against the back of his throat; the croissant flakes into nothing as he bites off another piece, the ham and cheese salty as he chews. Eyes on May, waiting for her to speak. 

May picks at the sleeve of her jean jacket, pulls at a loose thread, inhales sharply as it comes away in her hand, lets go to steeple her fingers under her chin, meets his eyes with a hint of _something_ flickering behind the cold. 

“I’m worried about Peter.” 

Fear laces through Tony’s body, sharp and hot as it tightens the lines of his shoulders, as it turns the flavors in his mouth bitter, as it quickens his fingers on the table. 

“Is he hurt?” 

“You would already know if he was hurt,” she says quietly. “You know before I do if he’s hurt. Let me tell you what _I_ know. I know that Peter’s been in marching band since the sixth grade, even though he’s awful at it, because Ned plays the clarinet, and I know that Peter’s been in robotics lab since Ned found out there was one at Midtown and dragged Peter to it, and I know he’s been in photography club since the day after Ben got shot and Flash shoved the flyer into his hands, and I know he’s been boxing since he was seven and needed an outlet that didn’t make his asthma worse. I know he’s been in film club since freshman year, when he and Ned found out about it and realized it was a club where they could just talk about Star Wars for an hour after school, and I know that he’s been in Academic Decathlon since Ben made him sign up. And I know that since you gave him that suit, he’s quit all of them except photography and Academic Decathlon.” 

The all too familiar feeling of guilt, thick and choking, swells up from Tony’s stomach, to his lungs, to his throat, because there’s a second meaning behind all her words, a meaning that screams _he’s my kid_ , a meaning that tells him that Tony is something to Peter, but he is not May, or Ben. 

“Mrs. Parker—” 

“He’s just a kid. _My_ kid. _Ben’s_ kid.” The guilt reaches Tony’s mouth, curling around his tongue and pinning it down, not letting him speak. “A fifteen-year-old boy, to whom you’ve given the power of the gods. And now he doesn’t care about being a kid anymore, Dr. Stark, and I’m _worried_. You want what’s best for him, and as much as I hate it, he’ll listen to you, so talkto him. Let him be a kid. He—” Her voice breaks, and Tony’s heart breaks with it. “God, he thinks he’s responsible for the world, he’ll always think that, and I love him for it, because that’s our kid, Ben’s kid, the one who cares too much, but he’s just a kid. He’s just a kid. He’s been through too much, he’s seen too much, and he shouldn’t have to give up his childhood any more than it’s already been taken from him.” 

The words rush out of her, a blaze of emotion that threatens to burn him, and when the fire dies down, fading out of her eyes, she slumps back in her chair, hands shaking as she rubs her eyes. 

“Help him,” she pleads. 

Tony swallows tightly, forcing the tendrils of guilt back to his stomach. He reaches across the table to take one of her hands in his and meets her eyes, promising, “I’ll do what I can.” 

_October 2, 1993._

_Queens, New York City, New York._

Numbers swim before Tony’s eyes, equations in blue and red and black ink, calculations in holographic light, dimensions in handwriting almost too messy to understand. His heartbeat echoes in his ears, too loud, or maybe too fast, or maybe both, and when he stands up, the floor ripples under his feet, coming up to meet him. The skin of his hands stings against the concrete, rocks stabbing into his palms and fingers, red smearing across the speckled gray stone. 

Tony blinks, and there are weights hanging from his eyelashes, dragging his eyes closed again, until he forces them open. The metal workbench behind him is cold through his thin t-shirt that hangs off his shoulder—it’s two sizes too big for him, and Tony can’t remember why at the moment, his head spinning in circles—and he turns to press his cheek against the metal. 

“‘m, that’s nice,” he mumbles to himself. 

The cold gets too cold in sixteen seconds, or maybe sixteen minutes; his counting is skewed. He pulls away, looking down at his hands, which are dotted with gray flecks, like stars, and streaked with red, like paint, and creased with lines, like a tic-tac-toe board, and stained with brown, like engine grease. It _is_ engine grease, he realizes, and stumbles to his feet with the thought carrying him, because he remembers now, remembers that he has to finish the spreadsheet for Obie, and the missile designs for Reynolds, and the clean energy presentation for the board. 

Red drips onto the screen of his tablet when Tony picks it up, and he rubs it away with his thumb, swallows a yawn as he starts to read over the numbers again, ignores the ringing noise in his ears and the pounding in his head. 

The weights on his eyelashes are back when he blinks again, and again, and again, head tipping forward to rest on his folded arms. “I need coffee,” he says into the warm skin of his forearm. His lips are chapped. 

Dum-E chirps at Tony’s side. The smell of coffee—burnt, and bitter—fills the air and the noise of something scraping onto the bench next to him fills his ears. He lifts his head and feels something that’s supposed to be a smile take over his face when he sees the chipped mug with a painting of gears on the side. He downs the contents in one chug and blinks the black spots out of his vision. 

“Thanks, bud.” 

Dum-E chirps again and rolls away. 

The coffee lasts an indeterminable amount of time, too many numbers in Tony’s head for him to count the seconds, but the energy it brought seeps out of his body slowly, until his head is hitting his arms again. 

Then there are arms around him instead of in front of him, and his head is resting in the crook of someone’s neck, and there’s a low voice murmuring in his ear. Tony leans into the someone, someone who’s warm and gentle, someone who smells like citrus and acrylic paints. 

“Oh,” Tony says. 

“Oh?” Ben sounds amused, and slightly annoyed. Tony supposes it’s because of him. 

“It’s you.” 

Lips press to the crown of his head. “Yeah, dumbass, it’s me.” 

“I was working.” 

“Working too hard,” Ben says tightly. 

“I’m sorry,” Tony whispers. Ben kisses his head again, not answering for a second, or a minute, or maybe even an hour. 

The world sways underneath them, the floor rippling like water, the ceiling parting like waves, and Tony closes his eyes as Ben carries him upstairs. He hears the steps creaking, and they sound like hundreds of tree branches breaking in unity. 

“I know. Have you eaten?”

The pounding in his head strengthens in volume when Tony tries to remember the answer to the question. “I—I don’t know. How long’s it been?” 

“I just got home from my shift,” Ben murmurs into his hair, and Tony knows he’s testing him, trying to figure out if the pounding is quiet enough for Tony to do the math. 

“I can’t.” 

Ben just holds him tighter. “That’s okay. It’s been at least two days, angel. You know I love your mind, but sometimes even that needs a break.” 

Tendrils of guilt slip their way into Tony’s mind, joining the pounding of drums, of Ben’s pulse against his lips. 

“Don’t apologize,” Ben says softly, before the guilt can pour into Tony’s mouth and make him speak. So he nods, presses closer to Ben, relaxes into his gentle hands. “You want a bath or straight to bed?”

“You pick.” 

“Okay, angel.” 

The world keeps moving, but Ben’s arms hold him steady. Black spots dance in front of his vision, but the freckles on Ben’s neck stay put. The pounding gets louder, but Ben’s voice, soft and calm and _gentle_ , breaks through it. 

Tony feels a rush of cold air, realizes that Ben’s helping him out of his clothes, lifts his arms and moves his legs to help, keeps his eyes closed, curls closer to the heat of Ben’s skin. 

“Bath time, love,” Tony hears, and then he’s submerged in hot water, Ben’s hands never leaving his shoulders. “You got grease in your hair,” Ben comments. 

“‘s from the engine.” 

A kiss brushes the bare skin of his shoulder, the back of his neck, the spot where his ear meets his jaw. “I know. Pretty sure you’ve also got gravel in your hands.” 

“Mm, maybe.” 

The huff Ben lets out blows warm air across the back of Tony’s neck and sends a shiver up his spine. He leans back into Ben, into the water that’s running down his chest, into the kisses being peppered across his skin. Ben’s hands run over his body, soapy and warm and wet, cleaning off the grime of the workshop from his skin and coaxing the stress of the company from his mind. Tony sighs when the warmth reaches his hair, Ben’s fingers pressing into his scalp, washing his hair, dragging the last of the tension out. 

“I love you,” he mumbles, slipping in and out of consciousness. “You keep me here.” 

Keeps him grounded, on the ground, keeps him from flying too far, from crashing too fast, keeps him with the people he loves, keeps him _safe_. 

The kiss Ben leaves against his head tells Tony that Ben understands. 

Ben must have gotten him out of the bath after Tony falls back into the cradle of sleep, because he blinks his eyes open to be met with Ben’s chest, bare and broad and freckled. He kisses the freckle on Ben’s pec.

“Hey, angel.” 

“Morning, handsome,” Tony mumbles. He’s wearing one of Ben’s sweatshirts, the one from the firehouse with _Parker_ on the back, worn and soft from almost three years of use, and a pair of Ben’s sweatpants, ones from college that have UMass in peeling lettering on the left leg. There are bandaids on his palms, yellow and blue with tiny Air Force wings, and tape on his left thumb, a hint of blood peeking through. Ben’s leg is thrown over his thighs, arms around his waist, chest under his cheek, hand cupping the back of his neck. “‘m warm.” 

“You were talking about being cold, had to fix that.” There’s a pause. “You overworked yourself again.” 

Ben’s thumb brushes his pulse point; Tony looks up to meet his eyes. 

“I’m sorry.” 

“Don’t be,” Ben says, voice firm, lips gentle when he kisses Tony. “Don’t be. I love you for it, I just don’t love when you don’t take care of yourself.” 

“You take care of me,” Tony says cheekily. Ben kisses him again. 

“Yes, I do, and you take care of me, but you have to sleep. You have to take care of yourself, because when you don’t, you’re hurting your beautiful brain, angel. You’re hurting your _heart_ , and I don’t like watching it happen.” 

Tony looks down, connecting the dots of Ben’s freckles with a gentle finger, kissing over the trail his finger makes. “Okay.” 

“Tony.”

“I promise,” Tony says, lifting his eyes to meet Ben’s. “For you, tesoro, I promise.” 

_September 15, 2016._

_Esopus, New York._

“It’s like, nine o’clock, you’re already going to bed?” Harley scoffs, the noise crackling from the speakers of Tony’s phone where it rests on his bathroom counter. “You have no flavor in your life anymore, old man. Oh my gosh, you really are an old man now, going to bed at nine—you probably have backproblems and read the newspaper and yell at kids to get off your lawn! I’m gonna have to take over as Iron Man now, aren’t I—” 

“Yeah, yeah, I get it, I’m old, but check your facts, Keener, it’s 23:30, and you should be in bed too, spud, you’ve got school tomorrow.” 

Harley’s silent for a minute, and Tony takes the time to finish brushing his teeth, rinsing his toothbrush off, setting it in the cup by his sink, then clearing his throat. “Harls.” 

“Did you seriously just call me _spud_?” 

There’s a thread of emotion in his voice, the way it wavers at the end of the sentence, emotion that Tony understands but won’t pull at for the same reason, so he just says casually, “I thought you knew, but nicknames are kinda my thing, bud, and I can’t keep calling you kid when I want something that’s not a variation of your name, so I’m trying things out, and you did shoot me with a potato once, so, you know, just trying things on for size. Goes with bug, too, spud and bug. God, I can never introduce you two, that would be chaos.” 

Tony can feel the tension seeping out of Harley across the call, can hear the tiny exhale of breath Harley lets out, can almost see the way his shoulders slump, even when Harley takes another minute to respond. 

“Bug’s the new kid, the one who’s helping you?” 

Harley’s bluntness shouldn’t surprise Tony anymore, yet it still manages to catch him off guard. 

It’s Tony’s turn to pause. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, you could put it like that.” 

“I’d be glad to meet him, then,” Harley says, and it’s a declaration, a promise. A small smile finds its way onto Tony’s face. 

“Thought I already said I could never introduce you two?” 

“And I thought you already knew that you can’t really prevent me from doing things, old man.” 

_O Dio mio_ ,Tony thinks, but what he says is, “You’re a little shit.” 

The cheeky grin on Harley’s face is audible. “Isn’t that why you love me?” 

“Yeah, sure, spud. Keep telling yourself that,” Tony teases, and that’s all it is, teasing, because the kid’s right. Harley’s grin gets louder. 

“Mhm. I’ll let _you_ keep lying to yourself, but I’m gonna go finish my homework.” 

“You haven’t finished your homework yet?” 

“And that’s my cue, bye, Tony!” 

The call ends with a beep and Tony shakes his head in exasperation, picks his phone up off the counter, goes to his texts to check for the inevitable spam from Peter followed by the _i’m home safe!_ message that lets him sleep easy, freezes when he sees nothing. Nothing since the text at 19:17 that just said: _i webbed a dude to his own car oops_

“FRI, where’s the bug?” 

His phone buzzes before she can answer. 

“Peter, where are you?” he snaps, fear thrumming in his veins. 

“Oh—sorry, Mr. Stark, I’m fine, I promise. Well—I mean, I’m still fine, but I kinda blew up Mr. Delmar’s bodega, or at least the guys that I was fighting did, but Mr. Stark! That’s why I’m calling you because—” 

“Yeah, no. My heart can’t take this. I love hearing you talk, bug, but I need you to answer my questions first, or I’ll have an aneurysm before you finish your monologue with two side-tangents,” Tony says, heart hammering in his chest, blood rushing in his ears. 

“An aneurysm’s in your brain though, I thought you said—nope, not the point, right, okay, sorry.” 

“Don’t apologize. First, are you safe?”

“Yep, I’m on the roof of the bodega.”

Tony’s eyes go wide. “The one that blew up? Spidey—we’ve got to reevaluate your definition of safe.”

“No, it’s just—okay, fine, give me a second.” There’s a rustle, a whoosh, a thwip, and then Peter’s talking again. “I’m on another roof now. There’s no one around me that I can see, or sense. I’m safe, Mr. Stark.” 

“Get his location, baby girl,” Tony says anyway. 

“On it, boss.”

“Woah, was that your AI?” 

A hysterical laugh bubbles up in Tony’s throat. “Spidey.”

“Right, not the point.”

“Second question: are you hurt?”

“Nope!” Peter reports. 

_O Dio mio_ , Tony thinks again, pinching the bridge of his nose and ignoring the beginnings of a headache pulsing at the back of his mind.

“Okay. That’s good. Now give me a full report of what happened, starting from the relevant events. I don’t need to hear about that guy you webbed to the car, we can talk about respecting people’s property tomorrow.” 

Peter groans. “Mr. Stark.”

“C’mon, bug, lemme hear the report and decide whether or not a heart attack is warranted.”

“I thought it was an aneurysm.”

“Maybe it’s both.” 

“Either way, I get you to an early grave,” Peter says. 

“I’m gonna ignore the fact that it sounds like you _want_ me in an early grave,” Tony answers. 

The fact that he’s still in the bathroom registers and he sighs, shaking his head again and walking out to his bedroom as Peter starts to ramble about ATM robbers, or maybe bank robbers, and Tony picks up on “glowy weapons” and “knock-off Avengers, like, their masks were so bad” and “levitation gun thingy, it felt so weird” as he sits down on his bed. He waves a hand to get FRIDAY to close the hologram of a map with Peter’s location (smackdab in the center of Queens) blinking in light red. 

“And then the bodega blew up,” Peter finishes.

“Did any of those weapons seem lethal?” 

“Uh. You mean, aside from the gun they had?”

Tony tastes bile. “Jesus Christ, bug.”

“I’m safe! I’m safe, I promise! And no, I don’t think so, but they didn’t—they weren’t normal weapons, Mr. Stark, and I feel like there might be more out there.” 

_Let him be a kid._

“Okay. Thank you for telling me, kiddo—I’ll look into it, okay? For now, why don’t you go home, get some rest, and focus on school tomorrow. Did you get all your homework done?”

“Okay, bye, Mr. Stark!” Peter says loudly. “I’ll text you when I’m home safe!” 

Tony huffs a laugh. _Teenagers._ “Bye, bug.” The call ends as he stands up, pockets his phone, and clears his throat. “Okay, FRI, let’s start looking into those weapons so Peter doesn’t have to.” 

_Let him be a kid._

“Sure thing, boss.”

_December 20, 1987._

_Lancaster, Pennsylvania._

Snow crunches under Tony’s boots, a thick carpet of white blanketing frozen grass and mud. The winter sun is a pale yellow, the only color in the clouded sky. There’s barely any wind, only a light breeze caressing Tony’s cheeks, reddened from the cold and matching the color of the woolen gloves on his hands—made by Richard, decorated with silver wrenches that look more like eggplants, but c’mon, Tony, he’s _trying_ —and the half-knitted cap on his head that makes the back of his neck itch. Tony tugs his glove off to scratch the irritated spot and tuck the trailing bits of wool up into the hat so they don’t dangle, letting out a huff of crystalized air at the cracked skin of his knuckles. 

A cardinal, easily identified by the black feathers around its bill, a fact instilled in Tony since the age of five by Jarvis’s constant birdwatching trips, chirps in a nearby tree, the branches bare, and he watches it take flight at the sound of their footsteps. The trees don’t look any different than the first time Rhodey brought him here three years ago; the sky was a different shade of gray, then, and the sun was higher in the sky, but the trees all look the same, skeletons of the life they possess on greener days.

The lake is the same too, the same as the day Rhodey had taken his hand and dragged him, unprepared, out into the snow, throwing a winter coat at him that was two sizes too big and calling over his shoulder to Momma Robbie that he was taking Tony to the clearing. It was the first Thanksgiving Tony had spent at the Rhodes’, the first Thanksgiving he’d ever spent at a place that felt more like a home than a house. Momma Robbie’s cooking tasted nothing like Ana’s and her hugs felt nothing like Jarvis’s, but the way her eyes crinkled when she smiled and the sound of her voice made the same overwhelming feeling of safety settle over Tony. 

He’s spent every holiday with Rhodey since, Thanksgivings and Christmases and Easters. 

This year, he brought Ben with him. 

The look in Momma Robbie’s eye when she opened the door and saw Tony’s hand in Ben’s spoke only of acceptance. The look in Ben’s eyes when he came upstairs after she had asked to talk to him, and spent over two hours with him while Tony and Rhodey played Monopoly (Tony won, all five times) was a mixture of fear and awe. 

_You’ve got good people in your life_ , was what he said later, arms holding Tony close to his chest. _I’m really happy to be one of them, angel._

Rhodey had decided to let Ben come with them to the lake after that, or at least that’s what he told Ben, but Tony knows Rhodey approved of Ben long ago, even if he tries to say otherwise. His approval may have lessened after Ben thoroughly kicked both their asses at Monopoly _and_ Scrabble, but then again, so did Tony’s. 

“Ben,” Rhodey says from behind him, “If you don’t pick up the pace, I will literally leave you here to freeze to death.” 

Tony turns, laugh catching in his throat as the sun breaks through the clouds, the rays making Ben’s hazel eyes gleam behind his glasses, haloing Ben’s hair; the brightest thing in the monochrome landscape around them, Ben glows golden. 

“Oh,” Tony whispers softly. 

Ben turns, looks at him, jogs forward, scoops him up, and before Tony realizes it, they’re falling into a snowbank, and Ben’s swallowing his yelp with a kiss that makes him shiver. “You can’t look at me like that and expect me not to kiss you, angel,” he murmurs against Tony’s chapped lips. Tony feels a rush of warmth in his chest that the biting cold outside them doesn’t dampen. 

“I wish I’d stayed at home,” Rhodey says mournfully above them, and then kicks the bottom of Tony’s boot gently. “Stop sucking face and get up, or I’ll tell momma that you pushed me in the lake.”

Tony kisses Ben again. 

“I hate you both.” 

“You love me,” Tony says, pulling back to brush snow out of Ben’s hair and looking up at Rhodey. “Plus, the lake is frozen, and momma likes me best, so I don’t think she’ll believe you.” 

“I’ll push _you_ in the lake,” Rhodey threatens, with absolutely no heat behind his words. “Now get up, we have to teach your beanstalk of a boyfriend how to ice skate.”

“Hey, I know how to ice skate, I just don’t know how to ice skate on a lake!” Ben says, as Tony mutters, “He’s more of a tree than a beanstalk, you know, easier to climb, easier to straddle.” 

Rhodey’s groan is met with Tony’s laugh. “C’mon, honeybear, I’m funny!”

“I’m glad you have a healthy sex life, Tones.”

Tony doesn’t need to look at Ben to know his face is red. “Me too, honestly. Of course, I’m not saying we need sex, and if Ben didn’t want it, that be absoutely fine with me, but the fact that I just get to bang this hunk?” He pats Ben’s chest, smiling winningly. “Pretty sure I’m blessed.”

“I hate you,” Ben grumbles. 

Tony kisses his cheek and grabs Rhodey’s hand—which wasn’t offered to him—to pull himself up. “No, you don’t. I’m the best thing to happen to both of you.” 

“Yeah, you are,” Rhodey says, slinging his arm over Tony’s shoulder and using his other hand to pull Ben up. “You’re also the most annoying thing,” he adds, the affection in his voice clear. Tony melts into his side, blowing a kiss to Ben and grinning as his face gets redder. 

“Better hurry up, handsome, or Rhodey will steal me away.” 

“I will _not_ , he can keep you,” is the immediate response, and then Tony’s back in Ben’s arms. “But—hey! No more kissing! We don’t have all day!” 

“We literally have all day, platypus.” 

“Sorry, Jim,” Ben says, but he doesn’t let go. 

“You’re both going in the lake.” 

“No, but we’re going on the lake.”

“Ben, sorry to say this, but I’m gonna murder your boyfriend.” 

“Eh, fair, I don’t think it’ll take much, you could probably just step on him.”

“Hey! I am not _that_ short! You guys are both giants!”

“You’re 5’6.”

“I haven’t hit my second growth spurt yet, Rhodey!” 

Ten minutes later, Rhodey and Tony are both on the lake—and Tony’s 5’8 in his skates, thank you very much—and Ben’s standing on the bank, the blades of his skates sinking into the mud. The thickness of their woolen gloves—Ben’s are yellow with white snowflakes, also made by Richie—dulls the feeling of Ben’s hand gripping his, their fingers laced together. 

“Okay, just to clarify, you’re _sure_ this is safe?” Ben asks for the seventh time. 

“Yes, we’re sure!” Rhodey yells, doing a figure-eight at the center of the lake. 

Tony rolls his eyes, but brings their joined hands to his lips and kisses Ben’s knuckles through his glove. The wool is dry and scratchy, his chapped lips sticking to the fabric, but when he looks up and sees Ben’s smile, it’s worth it. “Do you trust me?”

“Always,” Ben says immediately. 

“Then come here—” Tony tugs at their joined hands. “—and _trust_ me. I won’t let go. Pinky promise,” he teases softly. 

“Trust me, he says. We won’t drown, he says.” 

“You’re a drama queen, tesoro.” 

“Says you!”

“Oh, I’m well aware I’m a drama queen,” Tony says flippantly, slowly moving his left foot back. The ice is smooth under his skates, the snow coating it like powdered sugar melting in a line at the kiss of metal. “Now come on, or I’ll let go of your hand.” 

They both know he’s lying. 

Ben steps forward anyway, clumps of frozen mud falling off his skates onto the lake. 

“Crack,” Tony whispers, then bursts into laughter that rings out in the quiet clearing at Ben’s face, Rhodey’s own laughter joining from the other side of the lake. 

“You’re an asshole.” 

“You love me.”

“Yeah, remind me why?”

The look in Ben’s eyes, soft like warm honey, tells Tony that he doesn’t need to. 

“I love you too,” Tony murmurs. He tugs on Ben’s hand, waits patiently until Ben moves forward on shaky legs, scoots back again, grins when Ben scowls at him. “This is how you get used to skating on a lake! Rhodey did it to me, I hated it just as much, so suck it up, buttercup.” 

“Suck it up, buttercup,” Rhodey echoes, scraping to a stop inches away from Ben, and grinning when Ben stumbles even further away from the bank. 

“Jim!” 

“Rhodey!” Tony scolds, holding back a laugh. 

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll leave you two to it, don’t get frisky.” With a twist of his heel, Rhodey skates away and sprays flecks of ice against Tony’s jeans, some of it hitting Ben too. 

Tony’s eyes narrow. 

“Rhodey, get back here!” Rhodey sticks his tongue out from the center of the lake, and Tony makes up his mind. “Alright, handsome, let’s go.” 

“Tony, I still don’t know what I’m doing,” Ben starts, “So please—”

“Let’s go!” Tony repeats. 

Skating towards Rhodey is a disaster, with Ben trailing behind him, their hands the only point of connection and the only thing keeping Ben on his feet—or maybe the reason Ben keeps tripping. Tony keeps tugging at his hand, dragging him along, his arm bent awkwardly to keep himself in the lead and their fingers laced.

Rhodey skates backwards gracefully, waving at them with a cheerful grin. 

“Show-off!” Ben and Tony call out together. 

“You know it!” 

Tony’s arm starts to cramp, and he spins smoothly to face Ben, reaches out for his other hand, keeps skating easily with both of Ben’s hands in his. Rhodey fades to background noise when Ben smiles. 

Snow starts to fall, and Ben laughs, head tipping back and eyes closing as he sticks out his tongue. Tony tightens his grip, warmth with the strength of a crackling bonfire starting in his chest again at the show of trust Ben’s giving him, not letting go. 

He watches as snowflakes collect in Ben’s hair, on his eyelashes, on his eyebrows, on the tip of his nose and the apples of his cheeks and the scruff on his jaw. He drinks in the sight of the boy he loves, in the place he loves, the sound of their laughter surrounding them like a blanket. 

Ben’s eyes blink open, snow falling off at the disturbance, and Tony’s breath catches, the clouds of air in front of his face disappearing. 

“You’re…” Tony searches for the words that melt on his tongue like snow. “You’re…you look like a Greek god.” 

And Ben does. 

With the sun and snow haloing him, making him glow, with the smile on his face and the look in his eyes, Ben looks like he has a place among the Olympians. 

“Oh,” Ben says. “Oh, angel.” 

Tony tugs him closer and drags him into a kiss. A kiss that makes time stand still, as if the gods themselves are listening. 

Time starts again the second a snowball hits the back of Tony’s head. 

“Rhodey!” he shrieks, stumbling away from Ben, who’s doubled over in laughter, and Rhodey throws another snowball in response. 

Ben laughs even harder, and Tony can’t imagine a place he’d rather be. 

_September 16, 2016._

_Esopus, New York._

Soft Italian music croons from hidden speakers as Tony deftly slices pancetta and scrapes it off the wood cutting board into the skillet next to him. The sizzle of the meat as it hits the oil is covered by the melody that Tony sings along with under his breath, one hand tapping the piano notes out against the granite counter. The smell of fat rendering joins the slightly salty scent of boiling water in the small kitchen, and Tony pushes the meat around with a spatula before putting a splatter screen on top of the pan and turning to the bowl of whisked eggs he already prepared, tossing a few handfuls of grated Pecorino romano and cracked peppercorns in. 

Nostalgia brushes over him like a warm spring breeze, the memories of cooking this for Ben, for Richie, for Mary, caressing him like gentle rays of sunlight against his skin, and from even further back, memories of watching Maria cook while piano music played from the radio above the stove. 

The song changes, from _Alma del core_ to _Ombre amene amiche piante_ , and Tony relaxes even more, the floor warm under his bare feet from FRIDAY’s quiet attention. 

His phone buzzes as he takes the skillet off the stove, replaces the splatter screen with a plate to keep the pancetta warm, and adds the spaghetti to the boiling water, setting a timer in his mind to take it off in eight minutes. He knows it’s a text from Peter without having to even look for a notification from _**bug**_.

_we’re!!! in the car_

_neds got a hat on and he won’t take it off_

_mays playing old music i think you’d like it its like led zeppelin or something_

_what are parties like mr stark_

Tony’s fingers go still halfway through typing out a response to Peter’s text about music. 

_Oh, shit, I’m so sorry_ , Ben says in his mind, _I didn’t mean to—_

Tony slams the door on the memory before it can play out any further. 

Cups of stale alcohol soaking sweaty shirts and shocked faces with flushed cheeks disappear in the blink of an eye; dorm rooms packed with faceless people and crystal decanters filled with fancy booze slide in to replace them. 

He starts to type out a response, before shaking his head and just sending, _Don’t drink._

_i won’t i promise_ , Peter responds instantly, and some tension seeps out of Tony’s shoulders. He ignores the tension that still remains. 

_We don’t know how it’ll affect your powers_

_so what im hearing is we can test alcohol on my powers in a controlled laboratory setting_

The sound of Tony’s weak laugh is quiet compared to the noises from the stove. He rubs his face with one hand and leans back against the counter. 

_No._

_Not unless your aunt approves it_

He still doesn’t want Peter drinking, doesn’t want him near a bottle, not while Tony’s anywhere close, but May wouldn’t approve of it, that much he knows. 

_:(_

_ned thinks it’s a good idea_

_Tell Ted hi from me_

Tony’s mental timer goes off as Peter’s typing bubble appears and he sets his phone down, screen-up and still on, to turn the stove off, drain the pasta, add it to the bowl with the eggs, toss the pancetta in, and mix it thoroughly, all while watching Peter send two more texts, each a minute apart. 

_he says hi back_

_may says hi too_

The second message is a surprise, because Tony knows it’s the truth, but he doesn’t know if May said it to keep Peter oblivious to the way she feels about him, or if the way she feels about him is actually changing. 

_okay we’re almost at the party_

_luckily mays driving isnt as bad as her cooking_

_oh my gdohfg_

_she’s giving a sex talk i wanna die_

Tony’s laugh is less weak this time. 

_Do you want me to give a sex talk instead?_

_i’m gonna jump out of the car_

_nope nope bye_

Peter stops typing and Tony almost believes that the kid actually did turn his phone off, but only almost, so he tucks his own phone in the pocket off his sweatpants—Rhodey’s sweatpants—and finishes getting his dinner ready, grabbing a bag of baby carrots from the fridge and tossing a handful onto his plate before FRIDAY can scold him about the nutritional value of his spaghetti. 

The song changes again when he sits down at the counter, feet barely touching the ground from where they dangle off the barstool. He pulls up a hologram of Peter’s texts and then a new design for Rhodey’s braces to hover above his phone side-by-side as he eats, making notes on the design for different alternatives to the polymer on the inside of the joints. 

Peter doesn’t respond for at least twelve minutes, and when he does, it’s just _liz looks really pretty_

It’s not the first time Peter’s mentioned a Liz, or the second, or the thirtieth, but it remains amusing. 

_You gonna ask her out?_ Tony types with one hand, the other occupied with rolling his pasta. 

_i don’t know what you’re talking about_

_oh shit shes coming over_

_Maybe you should focus on her and not on me, I don’t need live updates kiddo_

_youre right omg bye_

Tony snorts. _Bye bug_

The pasta gets cold when Tony realizes that the comfort issue Rhodey’s been complaining about has nothing to do with the brace material and everything to do with the way the joints don’t align properly, which is a stupid issue he should’ve caught with the first design, but nevertheless he has to stand up to talk it out with FRIDAY, pacing from the edge of the counter to the windows of the living room. At some point, he grabs the bag of carrots and snacks on them as he talks, gesturing with both the bag and the individual carrots as FRIDAY records his ranting. 

When Tony finally notices the pasta’s cold, the sauce is too congealed for it to be any good unless he reheats it, and microwaved spaghetti doesn’t have the right texture, so he scrapes it into a Tupperware and sticks it in the fridge next to Pepper’s pizza box that he knows has been there for at least two weeks. He wrinkles his nose, takes it out with a quiet noise of disgust, dumps the three remaining slices of pineapple and olive pizza into the trash, hits the pizza box on the side of the sink to get the crumbs out, tosses it into the recycling bin. 

“Baby girl, tell Pepper I owe her a pizza and she can cash it in when she finds me an apartment.” 

“She already has listings for you to look through, boss,” FRIDAY says, sounding faintly exasperated. Tony grins at the camera above the fridge. 

“Oh, was I supposed to go through those?” 

FRIDAY wordlessly projects them from his phone. 

“Thanks, snookums, you’re the best,” Tony says, grabbing a carton of rocky road from the freezer and a bottle of sriracha from the fridge. He moves from the counter to the couch, scrolling through the listings between spoonfuls of ice cream. 

None of them feel right, but Tony knows why, because whatever apartment he chooses won’t smell like candles, and the kitchen table won’t have paint stains on it, and it hurts more than he cares to admit. 

So, he puts a star next to the two that are the closest to the Parkers’ apartment and have enough space for him to have a workshop. He pulls the second listing up again just to rotate through the pictures; the kitchen is bigger than the Compound’s, which is a pro, and the master bedroom has a window that faces west, which is another pro, and there are two guest bedrooms, and a park nearby, and a coffee shop across the street. All pros, barely any cons, and Tony thinks it’ll be the best out of anything Pepper finds. He flicks the star by the other one away and tells FRIDAY that he made his choice—that he most likely made his choice, because there’s still something wrong, but the thing that’s wrong is something that can’t be fixed because it’s something he broke almost 20 years ago—before setting the half-melted carton of ice cream on the coffee table and slumping back on the couch to rest his eyes. 

He’s almost asleep when FRIDAY’s voice, sharp and sudden and _fearful_ , cuts through the quiet calm that’s wrapped around him like a blanket. The words don’t register at first, but he’s on his feet in seconds because of the way she sounds, and then he hears, “Peter’s vitals have spiked, he’s reached an altitude high enough to deploy his parachute—” 

A sharp pain rockets up his leg when he bangs his knee on the coffee table, but it doesn’t compare to the fear twisting its vines around his heart and _squeezing_ until he can’t breathe. 

“Boss—” FRIDAY says, maybe in warning, and then the suit wraps around him and he’s flying out the window. 

He makes it to the Hudson faster than should be possible, and he can’t breathe as he searches for Peter’s heat signature, can’t breathe as FRIDAY pilots the suit for him, can’t breathe when they pull a limp body wrapped in a shroud of white out, can’t breathe even as he cradles Peter to the chest of the suit, can’t breathe as he pulls Peter’s mask off with trembling hands gloved in armor, can’t breathe when he sees the face of the boy who is not a soldier, can’t breathe as he reads Peter’s vitals again and again with prayers dying on his lips. 

And then Peter coughs up water, and Tony breathes. 

FRIDAY lands them in a playground—swing sets and a seesaw and a jungle gym eerily still in the dark of the night—sets Peter down, starts the heater in the Spider-Man suit, and flips the faceplate up for Tony. 

“What the hell just happened, Peter?” he asks, and his voice _breaks_ , because Peter’s face is white, and his lips are blue, but his eyes are _alive_ , and it’s terrifying. 

It’s even more terrifying when Peter launches into an enthused explanation about what happened even as he wrings the water that he almost drowned in from his mask. 

“Okay, so like—I was at the party, but then I saw this explosion that happened, and I couldn’t just ignore it, so I swung over, and there was a weapons deal going down, and it was the same type of weapons those guys that blew up Mr. Delmar’s shop had! Like, what a coincidence, except clearly not, because there’s these guys selling weapons, Mr. Stark, and who knows who else has them, but then Ned called me and they all heard my phone because I accidentally turned the ringer on and they tried to shoot me and then drive off, but I webbed onto the van and followed them, and then this vulture guy, he just—he swooped down, like a monster, and he picked me up and—and just like—he flew me up like a thousand feet and then he just dropped me!” 

Tony can’t breathe again, but he forces his lungs to expand. 

“There are so many things wrong with what you just said,” he starts, fighting to keep his voice even, “That I don’t even know what to begin with.” 

“Mr. Stark—”

“No. _No_. I’m talking now. You could’ve been killed, Peter, you almost were killed, you would’ve drowned if I hadn’t been there!” Tony’s voice shakes as hard as his hands, and his brain is moving too quickly for his mouth to keep up; all he can see is Peter _dying_ , over and over and over again, and he’s lost too much to lose Peter too. He takes another breath. “You are a _child_. You are not a hero, Peter, not yet, you are just a kid, and you’re not letting yourself be a kid anymore, you’re throwing yourself into danger and it’s reckless and _stupid_ and you’re going to get hurt, hurt worse than this, and then where will May be?”

Peter flinches. 

Tony flinches too. 

_You’re stupid_ , Howard spits in his mind. _Just a stupid kid._

“I’m sorry,” Tony whispers, and it hangs in the air. 

All he hears, for 18 seconds, is the cicadas in the bushes and the water dripping from Peter’s suit onto the ground. 

“It’s okay,” Peter says, and he sounds like a kid, for the first time that night. _He’s just a kid._ “Can I have a hug?”

Tony gets out of the suit instantly, and Peter’s in his arms even faster. 

“I know there are weapons deals going down, bug,” Tony says into Peter’s wet curls. “I know what’s happening. And I don’t want you involving yourself. I know you’re quitting clubs just to be on the streets, and I don’t want that for you, kiddo—I want you to live your life. You deserve a childhood.” 

“But I have a responsibility.”

It’s the way he says it that hurts the most, because Tony knows they aren’t his words, knows who said it to him. 

“Your uncle wouldn’t have wanted you to give everything up for this.”

The wet spot on his t-shirt from Peter’s hair gets wetter as Peter starts to cry. 

Tony combs the water out of his hair, rubs his back, holds him close. 

“It’s gonna be okay, Peter. I’ve got you.” 

“Thank you for saving me,” Peter mumbles. “Please don’t tell May.”

“Oh, Pete, you know I have to.”

Peter’s voice is small. “I know.” 

“You ready to go home?”

“Not—not yet—can we just stay like this for a bit? Please?” Peter whispers, voice even smaller. 

Tony’s heart breaks. 

“Of course, bug.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope you guys enjoyed, pls let me know what you thought!!!! 
> 
> find me on tunglr @angxlsgrxce to scream about bentony, rhodeytony, or any and all things tony


	7. yellow lights

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SCREECHES
> 
> hi i'm back with another chapter i didn't mean to not post two weeks ago i really just straight up forgot but i'm back on schedule so you can expect another chapter two weeks from this wednesday 
> 
> this chapter's long so i hope it makes up for the wait and uhhhh no tws for this chapter as far as i know

_July 23, 1992._

_Queens, New York City, New York._

The room is dark when Tony jerks awake, sweat soaking the fabric of his— _Ben’s_ , he has to remember that it’s _Ben’s_ —sweatshirt and tears soaking the curve of his cheekbones. His breath comes in and out with short gasps, half-trapped in his chest, in his throat, a staccato of air that won’t enter or exit his lungs. He curls his hands into fists, the loose cotton sheets at his sides trapped against his palms, stained dark by the same inky blackness that covers the rest of the room. The only light originates from the tiny digital clock on Ben’s bedside table— _Ben’s_ , it’s _Ben’s_ , Ben is there, Ben means _safe_ —and splashes against the wall in a pale blue, almost white, shadow of color. 

Tony focuses on it, the white-blue, or blue-white, until it burns itself into his vision, appearing even when he presses his eyes close, so the darkness is no more, but the absence of air and the tears on his face are still there, pressing in on him from all directions, until all he can focus on is his own quiet wheezing and the wetness that drips down his nose every time he blinks. 

A sob escapes him, a sob that’s too loud, a sob that echoes in the room much smaller than he remembered, but maybe it’s because the walls are closing in on him, and he can hear the sound of another person breathing, and suddenly there are footsteps— _Howard’s_ footsteps, and they’re coming for him, because he messed up, they’re _Howard’s_ —in the hallway outside.

_Run fight hide run stay hide_ , his mind shouts at him, _run run run_ , and he’s on his feet in an instant, or he tries to be. The blankets tangle around him, darkness creeping up his legs, the shadows of guilt and pain and anger pinning him in place and stealing the breath from his lungs, because he still can’t breathe. 

Howard’s footsteps get closer, and closer, and the burning sensation on Tony’s back that wasn’t there when he woke up gets hotter and hotter until it takes every shred of willpower that Howard beat into him to hold back a scream, or a cry, or a plea to make it _stop._

It doesn’t stop. 

The burning spreads throughout his body, hot wires of pain lacing his blood; the tears keep falling, tiny prickles of heat at the back of his eyes; the air stays trapped, a slow blaze from the base of his lungs. 

“Anthony,” Howard spits, and the word is just as hot. “Get up, stupid boy.” 

And Tony tries. 

But like always, or what constantly seemed like always with Howard, he fails. 

The scoff Howard lets out is enough to drown out Tony’s stuttered attempts to draw air into his lungs. “You’re weak, you know that? You’ve never been deserving enough of the Stark name. It’s pathetic. I have to parade you around, acting like you’re the son I wanted. We both know the truth, Anthony. You’re useless.” 

_Useless._

Tony knows Howard’s right, knows that everything Howard’s said is right, because he can’t make his legs work, he can’t get up, he can’t do as he’s told. He’s useless. He’s always been useless. 

Fire spreads over his body, the small of his back the center of the blaze, until he’s covered in flames, until all that’s left is heat. 

An Icarus, falling, burning, not from the heat of a sun but from the cut of a father’s—no, not a father’s—words. 

And then someone— _Ben_ , because _Ben_ is there, and he’s _safe_ —catches him. 

“Angel,” Ben murmurs first. 

Another sob escapes Tony, but he doesn’t make any attempt to quiet it, not this time. He’s safe. No one but Ben calls him that. He’s safe. 

“Antonio,” Ben says next, voice warm, because it’s so different from the sharp, cold _Anthony_. 

Tony shudders, face pressed to the curve of Ben’s neck, Ben’s lips against the crown of his head, their arms tight around each other. Behind his closed eyes, the darkness starts to recede. 

“You’re safe,” Ben whispers, and it becomes a litany, the words overlapping until all Tony can hear is _safe_. It’s one thing to think it, it’s another thing to hear it from Ben’s lips, and the more he does hear it, the easier it is to relax. 

And he does relax. 

As he grows aware of Ben’s hand cupping the back of his neck, the other things around them come into focus too. The cold hardwood floor under their bare legs—no, his bare legs, Ben’s are in sweatpants—the very edge of the braided carpet against his toes, the light of the clock against the wall—which means they’re on Ben’s side of the bed—the closed blinds with the trickle of streetlight from outside that he didn’t notice earlier, the loose sheets still soaked with his sweat tangled underneath them but not around them, the way his legs are wrapped around Ben’s waist. 

The way Ben holds him. He’s safe. 

Ben’s voice gets clearer, too, and Tony nearly laughs, a choked aborted almost-sob leaving his throat instead, when he hears Ben’s quiet whisper of, “He’s dead. You’re safe.” 

“Morbid of you, handsome,” Tony mumbles, voice raw, and he feels Ben’s exhale of relief more than hears it. 

“Mm, maybe. But I’m right. And you’re safe.” 

“Yeah. Yeah,” Tony whispers breathlessly, “I’m safe.”

The hand on the back of his neck squeezes once, twice, and then the hand on the small of his back becomes noticeable. Ben’s thumb brushes gently over the spot, the scarred tissue. Tony blinks away more tears. 

“Which one was it?” Ben asks, the question whispered into his hair, and Tony knew it was coming, just like he knows Ben doesn’t even need to ask it. 

“The workshop.”

The workshop, Howard’s frustration, a punishment for a boy far too young to understand why, the burn of a father whose love was nonexistent, the brand born of hatred. 

Tony had told him everything the first time the nightmare had happened; Ben had put all the pieces together much sooner. 

“You’re not useless,” Ben answers with. “No one is useless, especially not you. And your sole value doesn’t just come from your mind—that’s only one of the many things that makes you who you are.” 

The words wash over Tony like a balm, soothing the echo of flames that singe his blood. 

“I love you,” they both say, their voices overlapping, and they meet halfway through the sentence for a kiss. 

It feels safe. 

Ben stands up, brings Tony with him, takes them both back to the bed, leaves the sheets on the floor, replaces them with just the handmade quilt that normally goes over them. 

Once they’re back in position, the one that their bodies so easily conform to—Tony’s back against Ben’s chest, Ben’s arm over Tony’s waist, their hands laced together on Tony’s stomach—Ben kisses the back of his neck. 

“How do you feel about going back to sleep?”

Tony hesitates. “No—I don’t know.” 

“That’s okay, angel.” Ben’s lips curve against his skin. “I’m here.”

_I’m here. You’re safe._ Synonymous in Tony’s mind. 

After another pause, Tony rolls over, and this too is a position they know well—Tony’s head tucked under Ben’s chin, Ben’s hand curled around his neck, both their arms around each other. Tony kisses the freckle on Ben’s collarbone, an almost-perfect circle of darkened skin. 

“Wanna tell me about that new painting you’re working on?” 

“I always wanna tell you about my work.”

So Ben talks, and Tony listens, and the sun starts to peek through the blinds. And they’re safe. 

_September 21, 2016._

_Queens, New York City, New York._

There’s a knock on the door just as Tony closes the oven, and he goes to unlock it with an oven mitt with at least five burn marks peppered across the dark red fabric still on his hand. He’s expecting Happy, since it’s three minutes to 18:00 and he has an unfailing ability to arrive almost exactly 32 minutes before an event starts, or Rhodey, because he’s the only one who hasn’t seen the new apartment yet, but he opens the door to May. 

May, with a blue ceramic pot cradled between both hands and without a teenager at her side. 

Tony’s gaze flicks between the spot over her shoulder, her eyes, and the pot, before he registers that there’s something in the pot. 

“Is that a cactus?” 

The corner of May’s lip twitches up. “You have astounding observational skills.”

“Does the choice of plant mean something?” Tony asks, still trying to push past the fact that May showed up despite Peter’s earlier text of _can’t come to your houseparty thing i’ve got a school trip tomorrow to pack for_ and further still, the fact that she brought a gift. 

“I thought it was up to you to find the humor in everything, Dr. Stark,” May answers, and there’s definitely a hint of laughter in her voice, in her eyes. Before Tony can respond to it, though, she tips her head towards the door. “May I come in?” 

Tony nods wordlessly and steps back to let her in, taking the plant as she holds it out without hesitating and setting it on the table in the small room that functions as a foyer for the apartment. The cactus in its simple pot brings a different color to the fairly empty space and something settles in Tony’s chest when he looks at it. 

“Thank you,” he offers, turning to look at where she’s moved further into the living room. 

She shrugs. “You need a pop of color, I think.” 

“The plant is nice too.” And then, to cover up the admission that’s verging on too emotional for him, he adds, “It’ll go with the orchid Pepper’s bringing me.”

“Bit presumptuous to assume she’ll be bringing anything,” May says, but there’s no bite to her words.

“She always gives orchids as gifts, it’s because she hates them. It’s a thing for her, it brings her amusement to see them in other people’s spaces. I think it’s something about the way they’re awful to take care of unless you follow a strict schedule.”

“Oh, so a perfect gift for you.” The sarcasm of the sentence is blatant and Tony couldn’t stop the snort that escapes him even if he wanted to. 

“It’ll be dead in three days, most likely,” he says, not bothering to hide the self-deprecating tone, but it gets him a grin. 

“I don’t have much of a green thumb either, it’s why the only plants in the apartment are cactuses,” May tells him absently, fingers dancing across the back of the couch that FRIDAY ordered because she liked the color. “Barely require any work, so I can focus my attention on a certain spider-baby.” 

Tony leans against the spot where her fingers had touched only seconds before as she crosses to look at the bookshelf against the wall—also ordered by FRIDAY—with its various collection of science theses and fantasy novels. “How is the spider-baby?”

“Lying about something,” May says, glancing over her shoulder at him. Tony’s heart stutters in his chest. 

“Is he—” He answers his own question before he can ask it, because May wouldn’t be here if Peter was in trouble. “What’s he lying about?” he asks instead. 

May huffs out a weak laugh. “What isn’t he lying about?” 

“Is he doing better?” 

“Yeah. Yeah, he is. He’s hung out with Ned more in the past week than he has in at least a month, I think. So…whatever you said to him after he…” They both go still, May’s face whitening and Tony’s hand shaking at his side. She changes courses. “After that night, whatever you said, it helped.” 

“That’s good,” Tony says, voice weaker than he means it to be. He clears his throat. “How ‘bout that school trip that he’s going on?” 

“Oh, right. It’s something for Academic Decathlon—” _Which he quit_ , Tony’s mind fills in. “—nationals, in D.C. It’ll be good for him, getting out of the city, the responsibilities he thinks he has here, and the girl he likes, Liz, is on the team, and she’ll be on the trip too. Plus, he’ll be spending more time with Ned, so even if it means he’ll be gone until Sunday, I think it’s a win-win. He just wasn’t gonna go on it originally, so…” She gestures vaguely with her hands, at herself and then at the window, at Peter. “He’s at home packing.”

“Does he have everything he needs?” Tony asks on autopilot, already running through a list in his head. “I can get FRIDAY to order—”

“We’re fine, Dr. Stark.” 

May’s eyes are harder now. 

“I’d be happy to order whatever you request,” FRIDAY cuts in suddenly. Tony doesn’t know whether to scold her or laugh. May looks like she doesn’t know how to respond either. 

“Your A.I. doesn’t like me,” she says, and it’s so far from what Tony expected that he almost does laugh. 

Instead, he says slowly, “She’s protective.” And then, “How can you tell?” 

As much as he likes to pretend differently, FRIDAY is just an A.I., and many people don’t bother detecting her tone, or think that her tone can change in the first place. But May’s different, just like Ben was different, just like Peter’s different. 

“Because I doubt she talks to you like that.” 

“You’re right, I don’t,” FRIDAY says.

“Dio mio,” Tony mutters, “I’ll mute you if you keep attempting to ostracize my guest. Play nice, baby girl.”

May laughs softly, and FRIDAY makes a quiet sound of agreement, so Tony takes it as a win. He straightens up, readjusts the couch cushions, clears his throat, and asks, because he realizes Jarvis might be rolling over in his grave, “Would you like something to drink?” 

“A cup of tea would be nice.”

“Any kind?” 

“Whatever kind you have, Earl Grey lavender if it’s there.”

As Tony gets the tea ready—kettle first, filtered water only, never tap—he watches May walk around the living room once more, taking in the few pictures he managed to find and hang on the walls, of Rhodey and Pepper and Happy and Harley, of the bots, of JARVIS’s code, and the trinkets that litter the shelves in between books, stuff he’s collected over the years or art sent to him by little kids across the country. 

“You read your fanmail?” May asks suddenly, as he’s rifling through the cabinets trying to find the box of tea bags that he know he just unpacked. His hand lands on it, tucked behind a bag of Goldfish, and he shifts to look at her, setting it on the counter in front of him. 

“Most of the time. It has to be vetted, first, since little kids don’t really have a filter and could drop a trigger anytime,” he says, “But yes, I do.” 

May runs her finger across the frame of a picture, drawn in crayon and stained with coffee. “Does that happen often? Kids being too blunt?”

Tony shrugs, and says, “I’ve gotten better at managing my triggers,” and God, his therapist will be so happy to hear that he’s actually talking about this, especially with someone who he doesn’t know if he trusts. He glances at the cactus again, unassuming from its vantage point in the entryway, and remembers how easy it was to take it from her without thinking. Maybe he does trust her. He blinks the thought away as the kettle whistles on the stove, and turns back to pour her tea into an Iron Man mug that Rhodey found at a dollar store. “But sometimes it happens, with brats who don’t know how blunt they are.” When he sets the mug on the counter for her to take, he sees the frown in her brow, and snorts. “My brat. His name’s Harley, we can’t let him and Peter meet.” 

She takes the mug, turning it to see the flaked gold painting of his faceplate on the side. He can’t read her expression as she looks at it, but her lip quirks again. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Tony checks the timer on the oven again—37 minutes left—and opens the dishwasher to grab his own mug, a hand-shaped rainbow-glazed monstrosity Abbie Keener made for him the last time he visited Rose Hill, second only to the white and yellow thrifted mug with a cartoon bear in a bee costume Rhodey found sometime when he was overseas. 

“Cute mug,” May comments. 

“You can say it’s ugly.” 

“It has…personality.” 

They settle into an almost comfortable silence, a sharp contrast from the last time they shared tea with each other, and Tony finds himself relaxing against the marble countertop, matching the restless beat May’s foot taps against the floor with his pinky on the curved handle of his mug. His phone buzzes in the pocket of his jeans, most likely a message from Happy about why he’s late, and the cuffs of his sweater bunch up around his forearms as he takes another sip of tea, and oddly, in the moment, the apartment feels like it could be _home_ for the first time. 

There’s a knock on the door moments later, and May moves to get up, but he waves her off and brings his mug with him, opening the door to see Happy, holding a small cardboard box with holes messily punched in the top by what looks like a pencil. Then the box meows. 

“Happy. Happ. Happster. My dear Earl of Grantham. _Harold._ What the fuck is in the box?” 

Happy winks at him and walks inside, closing the door behind him and locking it like he always does. Tony groans quietly and follows him into the living room, where May watches them from over the top of her mug. 

“Nice place you got here, Tones, real nice.”

“You’ve seen it already! What’s in the box?”

“Your housewarming gift.” 

“It meowed.”

“They do that sometimes,” Happy tells him, completely serious. 

“Give me the box, Harold.” 

Over Happy’s shoulder, Tony catches May mouthing _Harold_ to herself, and bites back a laugh. 

“You’re so dramatic. I’ll trade you.” Happy takes the mug from his hands without waiting for a response, replaces it with the box, which meows again, and walks around Tony to sit down on the arm of the couch, sipping at his stolen tea. “Good blend.” 

“You know absolutely nothing about tea,” Tony says blankly.

“It’s still a good blend. Open the box.”

Tony opens the box. 

A black kitten, small enough to fit in any of Tony’s mugs, with white socks and a pink nose, blinks up at him, one eye half-shut. Warmth grows in Tony’s chest. 

“You got me a kitten.” 

“You need a friend who wasn’t a bug.” At that, May laughs loudly. “I thought you’d like him, I already told FRI to order the stuff you need to take care of him.” 

“It’ll be here tomorrow, boss.” 

The warmth spreads further as Tony balances the box on the palm of one hand and reaches inside to scoop the kitten out with the other. “Thanks, Happ.” 

“I thought he was a pretty good gift,” Happy says cheerfully. “Oh, he needs a name, by the way. Please be kind and don’t name him something stupid, the bots deserve better.” 

Tony wrinkles his nose and opens his mouth to protest, or defend his bots, or really, defend the names his bots have, because they’re all great names, and Happy’s clearly _wrong_ , but then the kitten purrs against his chest, and rolls over in his hand to expose his stomach. There’s more white markings under his chin, giving him the penguin-esque look of a tuxedo, complete with a bowtie, and Tony grins. 

“I’m naming him Edwin.”

The kitten— _Edwin_ —purrs louder. 

Happy sighs. “It’s better than Dum-E.”

“Take that up with Rhodey.” 

Someone laughs, and it’s either May or Happy, but Tony’s only focused on the way Edwin blinks sleepily, or lifts his chin to get scratches, or bats his paw against Tony’s chest. “Hi,” Tony whispers, when Edwin looks up at him. “You’re too cute for your own good, did you know that?”

Edwin meows softly, rolling over in Tony’s hand again to look at the floor. Tony sits down, legs crossed and back against the kitchen counter before he gets any ideas about jumping, settling Edwin in his lap and not bothering to fight his smile when the kitten immediately jumps out to paw at a sliver of onion skin. 

“FRIDAY, order some toys, too,” Tony says absently as he reaches up to grab a piece of paper from the S.I. legal pad on his counter, crumples it into a ball, and tosses it towards the couch. Edwin ignores it in favor of pushing the skin around until it flakes into tiny pieces. When he discovers that there’s not much left to play with, he returns to Tony’s lap, eyes almost bug-like with how wide they are. He meows again, pushing his head into Tony’s hand until Tony scratches behind his ears.

When Edwin gets bored of that, he decides he’d rather attack the hand on his head, sinking his tiny claws into the sleeves of Tony’s sweater, rendering Tony’s attempts to get him to let go useless as he starts to climb up to his shoulder, perching there like a bird. 

Then something catches his attention across the room, the same piece of paper Tony threw only minutes ago, he scrambles down to go bat it under the couch, trips over his own paws, and skids across the hardwood floor until he hits the vintage rug—yet another one of FRIDAY’s purchases—stretched out below the coffee table. He meows mournfully and sits back on his hindlegs, momentarily distracted from the ball of paper. Tony huffs a laugh. 

“There’s an easy solution here, bud.” 

Edwin meows again. 

Tony rolls his eyes, reaching up to make a new ball for Edwin to chase, but he’s already back on his feet and wriggling under the couch to find the first one, tail sticking up in the air. “Don’t get stuck,” Tony says unnecessarily, because Edwin pops out on the other side with the ball in his mouth, flopping onto the carpet to kick at his prize. “Yeah, make sure it’s dead, good job.” 

The paper doesn’t hold Edwin’s attention for long, and he runs around the couch to chase a speck of dust in the air for a while, before finding an A.C. vent in the wall near the floor and sticking his face in the air it generates, and then turning his concentration to a loose thread in the rug, all while Tony watches him with a smile that gets increasingly wider and fonder.

Maybe it was a little unfair of him to name his clearly-dumb cat after Jarvis, but the bowtie pattern was too spot on to avoid it, and Edwin will—hopefully—grow into the dignity that his name provides, or Tony might have to have a Dum-E Jr. in the family.

“Why are you on the floor, genius?” 

Tony tears his attention away from where Edwin’s clawing at the back of his couch—he’ll have to figure out something to do about that, and make sure FRIDAY ordered a scratching post too—to look up at Rhodey. “Hi, honeybear.”

“Hi, Tones,” Rhodey murmurs, resting his hand on Tony’s head to play with the loose curls. A quilt drops into Tony’s lap, and Tony knows without having to check that he’ll find an embroidered signature on the lower left corner in Momma Robbie’s handwriting. “Momma’s upset you didn’t tell her you were moving.” 

“Oh, fuck,” Tony mutters. “I’ll call her tomorrow?” 

“Mm, you better. Why are you on the floor?” “So you can play with my hair.” 

“Well, mission accomplished.”

“Oh, and Happy got me a cat,” Tony tells him, right as Edwin realizes the presence of a blanket in the apartment and runs headfirst into Tony’s shin. 

Rhodey’s hand stops in his hair. “You know you have to actually take care of a pet, right?” 

“Jim,” Happy says sharply, because right, Happy and May are there. 

“At ease, Happ. It’ll be fine, platypus, I can do it.” 

There’s a beat. 

“Okay, genius. Now get up, my back hurts just looking at you.” 

Tony ignores the paralysis joke he could make in favor of letting Rhodey pull him to his feet, bringing Edwin, who perches on his shoulder again, along with him, and picking up the quilt to drape over the back of the couch. Rhodey’s arm forgoes its usual spot slung over his shoulders to wrap around his waist, and Rhodey makes a comment about the damn cat taking his space, and Tony winks and tells him that no one could ever replace him, and the apartment, again, feels like it could be _home_. 

“Oh, open your gift,” Rhodey says, nodding his head towards a CVS plastic bag on the kitchen counter. 

There’s a figurine, about the size of Edwin, with four plastic clams in suits, googly eyes and all, sitting around a plastic shell table, cards in their hands, cigars in their mouths, sodas on the table. 

“Clams playing poker.” 

“It cost me a fortune.” 

A tiny red sticker on the back of one of the clams’ heads tells Tony it was 50 cents. He kisses Rhodey’s cheek anyway.

“Gee, thanks, honeybear.”

May hides her laugh behind her mug. 

The doorbell rings, and that could only be Pepper, since he didn’t even know there was a doorbell and she was the one who found the apartment. Happy goes to get it, takes the purple orchid in her hands, sets it next to May’s cactus, and Tony gives May a look. She takes another sip of her tea. 

“Tony—oh, Happy, you didn’t.” 

“Didn’t what?”

“I thought the cat was a joke.”

“His name’s Edwin,” Tony interrupts. Rhodey’s thumb rubs a circle on his hip. Pepper’s eyes soften. 

“Because of the bowtie?”

Tony grins. “Yep.” 

“You’re lucky the building allows pets.” 

“He’d keep the cat anyway,” Rhodey says, “C’mon, Pep, you know him better than that.”

“He’s mine now, I’m not giving him up.” 

“Peter will love him,” May says casually, like it doesn’t make the warmth in Tony’s chest spread throughout his body, an overwhelming feeling of _safecalmhappiness._ He’s vaguely aware of Pepper introducing herself to May with what looks like a _blush_ dusting her fair cheeks, and of Happy checking the timer in the kitchen again, and of Rhodey’s arm still around his waist, and of Edwin’s claws digging into his shoulder, but thinking about Peter’s reaction to the new addition to his family takes centerstage in his mind. 

He pulls out his phone to take an awkwardly-angled photo, capturing most of Edwin’s face, to send to _**bug**_ , and seconds later, it’s buzzing in his hand with Peter’s grin lighting up the screen. 

“His name is Edwin,” he says as soon as he picks up, in answer to a question Peter hasn’t asked yet. 

“He’s adorable, oh my God, I want to hug him, he looks so stupid,” Peter gets out in one breath. 

Rhodey laughs quietly, close enough to hear all of Peter’s words. “He is stupid.”

“Oh my God, is that War Machine? Hi, Mr. Colonel Rhodes!” 

“Hi, spider-baby.”

_Don’t take my kid_ , Tony almost says, but he catches himself, eyes going a little wide as he says instead, “My cat is _not_ stupid, thank you very much.”

“He looks so tiny, how tiny is he? Can you hold him with one hand—I bet you can hold him with one hand—I’m not even a cat person but Mr. Stark, he’s so cute—” 

Peter keeps rambling in his ear, and Rhodey’s arm stays wrapped around him, and Pepper and May are _definitely_ flirting in his living room, and Happy’s puttering around the kitchen, and Tony realizes that the apartment doesn’t just feel like it could be home, it _is_ home. 

_October 15, 1989._

_Boston, Massachusetts._

The first thing Tony notices when he blinks awake, eyes crusted with sleep and mouth dry, is the crease in Ben’s brow, a furrow that’s only there when something’s upsetting him. Ben’s eyes are still closed, despite the rise and fall of his chest in a pattern too stuttered to mean he’s still asleep. Sunlight streams in through the half-closed blinds, cascading across their bed in diagonal lines, cutting across the blue of the quilt covering their overlapping legs and all the way up to Ben’s face. The clock on Ben’s nightstand goes off, a steady beeping that will get increasingly faster, and Ben flinches. 

“It’s okay, tesoro,” Tony murmurs instantly, reaching over him blindly to run his fingers along the top of the clock until he finds the grooved button that shuts the alarm off. He pushes it twice and Ben loses some of the tension in his shoulders. Tony settles back, replacing the plastic texture of the clock under his fingers with the warm skin of Ben’s brow, smoothing the crease out with gentle brushes of his thumb. 

Ben’s voice is rough with sleep when he speaks. “Thanks.” 

“Mm, always. Migraine or anxiety?”

“Anxiety,” Ben mumbles, and that’s Tony’s cue to slip his other hand under Ben’s shirt, fingertips pressing into the divot at the small of his back, trailing over his skin, tracing patterns across his back by connecting the patches of freckles that he’s looked at hundreds of times and committed to memory. Ben’s forehead drops to rest against the crown of his head, face pressed to his tangled hair. 

“We moving to the living room or staying here?” Tony asks, keeping his voice barely above a whisper.

“Up to you, don’t know.”

“No, handsome, it’s up to you. What do you want?”

“I don’t know,” Ben repeats, the words tinged with frustration and his eyes still screwed shut, so Tony waits, thumb still resting on Ben’s brow. “Living room. I—I want to watch a movie with you.”

Tony leans up to kiss Ben’s jaw. “Sounds perfect. I’ll make popcorn and hot cocoa, and we can build a blanket fort,” he teases. He’s rewarded with a tiny smile that makes the sunlight blanketing them feel warmer, no matter how weak it is. “I love you.”

Ben tilts his head, pressing a kiss to Tony’s palm in response. 

“Okay, getting up now?” 

“Yeah,” Ben says quietly. 

When he opens his eyes, they’re wet with tears. 

Tony kisses away the ones that spill over. 

“I’ve got you, Benny.”

Getting up is a struggle. They sit together on the edge of the bed, fingers laced together and Tony’s head on Ben’s shoulder, until Ben’s ready to stand up. Tony doesn’t let go of his hand. 

They go to the bathroom first, where Tony’s able to coax Ben into a quick shower. He watches the tension, alongside the strength, drain out of Ben through the sheer shower curtain with yellow goldfish dotting its surface, steam filling the bathroom until Tony’s shirt—actually Richie’s, stolen by Ben—sticks to his skin and the sound of the water against the off-white tile almost muffles the sound of Ben’s stifled sobs. Tony doesn’t let go of his hand. 

When Ben gets out of the shower, Tony has Ben’s glasses and a pair of his own MIT sweatpants ready for him; they’re two sizes too small, but Ben relaxes into them like a second skin. He leaves the towel around his bare shoulders, hair plastered to his head, and Tony reaches up to dry it for him, humming an Elton John song— _their_ song—while he gets most of the water, still warm, out of Ben’s hair. And he doesn’t let go of his hand. 

“Thank you,” Ben whispers. Tony kisses the knuckle of his forefinger. 

“I’ve got you.”

“I know.”

Once the popcorn’s made—two bowls worth of it, the M&M’s added to Ben’s and the butter drenching Tony’s—Tony drags Ben to the couch, flopping down with his neck supported by the orange pillow they found at a farmer’s market that Ben said reminded him of a sunrise. Ben fits into place on top of him, a weighted blanket of half-naked boyfriend, his head tucked into Tony’s neck and hair within perfect distance to play with. 

The remote is within reach to turn the TV on to Ben’s favorite channel where _Casablanca_ ’s on. Ben kisses his neck when the familiar soundtrack fills the apartment, and Tony holds him tighter, content to let it be the only noise, content to be silent for once, because on days like this, Ben’s mind is talking enough for the both of them, and Tony knows that, knows that if Ben isn’t talking, neither is he. It helps him to know that the silence is helping _Ben_ , and it’s easier to be okay with it, to love it, when Ben relaxes even more on top of him because of it. 

Silence comes easy when it’s for Ben. 

The daylight runs out as they spend it switching between black and white movies and Star Wars, Ben eating Tony’s popcorn when his own runs out and making faces at the amount of butter coating each kernel, Tony making tiny braids with the longer strands of Ben’s hair and doing absolutely nothing to prevent Ben from taking his popcorn. When the sun goes down, and Tony has to turn on the thrifted lamp on the end table by his head, the lines creasing Ben’s forehead have all but disappeared, and he knows the worst of it is over. 

Ben’s focus is on the TV, mouthing the words on-screen Han Solo is saying against Tony’s chest, when his eyes flick up to meet Tony’s. 

Tony kisses his forehead. 

“Love you,” Ben whispers. “More than words can say.” 

Tony waits, for just a second, because he knows the timing lines up just right, and he knows Ben did it on purpose, and says, just as Han Solo does, “I know.”

Ben’s face breaks into a smile. 

It’s brighter than anything Tony’s ever seen. 

_September 23, 2016._

_Queens, New York City, New York._

The metal of the bike rack is cool under Tony’s hands, and it’s quite possibly the only thing grounding him to the earth in the moment, the news clip from earlier that day of Spider-Man launching himself off a helicopter on re-play in his mind. The air is crisp around him, almost as sharp as the Italian streaming from May’s mouth as she paces behind him, flip-flop slapping the concrete every time she lifts her left foot. The monotony of the pattern is almost soothing, something he can match his breathing to, something he can use to get the news clip to _stop_ , because his mind wants to convince him that Peter’s webs didn’t catch the brick of the Washington Monument in time. 

His brain needs to be quiet. 

He pulls out his phone to reread Peter’s texts, all from within the past two hours. 

_im okay i promise_

_so is everyone else_

_mr stark im on the news!!!_

_may left me a lot of voicemails_

_she’s calling now_

_she’s upset_

_you’re upset too huh_

_No shit_ , Tony thinks, and then sends, fingers tapping restlessly against the translucent glass of his phone. _How close are you?_

_abt 15 mins out_

_i thought may told you not to curse in front of me_

“Cazzo, Peter,” May mutters. 

_Point’s moot now, bug._

_Stop texting me and pay attention to her, I’ll chew you out when you get here_

Peter’s typing bubble appears, then disappears again, and Tony waits another 12 seconds until he hears the kid’s voice coming from the tinny speakers of May’s phone—which he really needs to replace—in what sounds like a protest to slip the phone back in his pocket and grip the bike rack with both hands again. 

“Peter’s ETA is 22:17, boss,” FRIDAY’s voice says from his pocket. He didn’t tell her to do that, to keep him updated, which means she’s picking up more cues, learning, expanding her code. He almost smiles. 

“Thank you, baby girl.”

He counts the next four minutes as they pass, until May’s hand comes to rest on his shoulder. The heat of it burns through his thin t-shirt, and out of the corner of his eye, he can see her chipped nail polish—bright red, the same shade that his Aunt Peggy used to wear on her lips, and God, he can’t think about her right now or how he missed the funeral, so he focuses on the daisy on her pinky instead—and her bitten cuticles. “I thought you talked to him.”

“I did. It clearly wasn’t enough.”

“He has too much of Ben,” May whispers. 

“That’s not a bad thing,” Tony answers immediately. 

“It is when he’s fifteen.”

Tony can’t argue with that. 

Her hand stays on his shoulder while the next seven minutes pass—he counts, and FRIDAY keeps them both updated, and Peter texts May a picture of him and Ned that she shows him with a faint smile—in what could pass for a comfortable silence, if they both weren’t doing everything possible to stave off panic. 

“Ben would be terrified right now,” Tony says, to break the silence. 

It’s the first time he’s said his name in front of her. 

It’s the first time it’s felt okay to. 

She laughs weakly, and then suddenly her arm is around his waist, and her head is resting on his shoulder. He refuses to let his body tense, ever so carefully wrapping his arm around her waist in response. “Yeah, he would be. We would have to be the sane ones, keep him calm.”

_We._

“Do a breathing exercise,” Tony jokes, even though they both probably need one. 

“Yeah. Yeah.”

“Do you miss him?”

The question hangs in the air. 

“Do you?”

That question goes straight to Tony’s heart. 

“Every day.”

“Me too.” And then, “God, what a pair we are.” 

_We._

Two more minutes pass with their arms around each other, the quiet but frantic voices of the other parents serving as white noise to their overlapping breath patterns. 

Luckily, no one’s noticed Tony Stark, Iron Man, on the sidewalk next to May Parker. It’s probably the clothes—the ratty band t-shirt with at least two holes, and the jeans that have definitely seen better days—the lack of gel in his hair, the scruff instead of his normal perfectly-trimmed goatee. 

Or the fact that he’s even there; a paradox within itself. 

He needs to work on his public image. 

There’s a honk, a flurry of restless parents, and then the AcaDec bus pulls up, parallel-parking despite the sign that explicitly states not to. 

May waits, arm tightening around his waist, until Peter steps off the bus, and then she’s gone like she was never there. 

“Peter!” 

Tony watches her yank Peter into her arms, watches him relax into her like it’s second nature, watches them embrace, and feels that same pull of _longing_ he felt the first time he saw May hug Peter. 

Peter pulls away first, and for a second Tony sees Richie, always the one to pull away first, always moving too fast, for anyone but Mary, and he sees Richie even more when Peter tilts his head down for May to kiss his forehead, the same way Richie used to do. Her lips move against his hairline, the words too quiet for Tony to hear, but he can guess as to what she’s saying. Peter wraps his arms around her again, a looser embrace now. 

“I’m okay,” Tony hears him say, “I’m okay.” 

May’s hands come up to cup his face as she takes him in. 

Tony’s heart aches. 

“Peter,” May says again. 

“I’m okay,” Peter repeats. 

The metal is warmer under Tony’s hands now. 

Peter pulls away first again, and this time May meets Tony’s eyes over his shoulder. He almost wants to ask if she sees Richie too, or if the way Peter’s arms fall to his sides, the way his shoulders set, speak only of Ben to her, only of the responsibilities Peter thinks have been bestowed on him. 

“Mr. Stark!” 

“Peter,” Tony whispers, far too quiet for Peter to hear. The kid grins anyway. 

There’s a beat, as Peter walks towards him, where Tony doesn’t know whether or not to expect a hug, but then Peter reaches for him, and Tony doesn’t know why he doubted him. 

“I’m not sorry,” Peter mumbles against his shoulder. It’s the most startling thing he’s said all night and Tony almost pulls away to look at him. 

“You’re what?”

“I’m not sorry, Mr. Stark. I know you want me to be—” “Of course I want you to be! We talked about responsibility—” “They came to my school. It became my responsibility. I won’t apologize.”

May meets his eyes again. 

“Peter,” Tony starts, before faltering to a stop, the words drying up like a dying flower that he doesn’t want to choke out. “Thank you for being safe. I’m proud of you.”

“You are?”

The shock in Peter’s voice pierces Tony’s heart like a _knife._

_You can do better, Anthony._

“God, of course I am, bug. Of _course_ I am. You did good. You did really good, kiddo.” 

Peter’s arms tighten around him. “Okay. Thank you.” 

Tony kisses the side of his head before he can think too hard about it. “You did good.”

When he looks at May again, she’s smiling. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope you guys enjoyed, let me know what you thought, and again i'm really sorry for the wait i really didn't mean to forget
> 
> (you can find me on tumblr @anglsgrxce, come talk to me about all things tony!!)


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